In Our Garden of Snow and Roses
by Blue Jeans
Summary: Two children grew up loving each other before they knew what such words meant. Until one day, a cold wind from the North blew through town and stole the boy from the girl... Kenshin and Kaoru.
1. Between Two Balconies, Lies Two Hearts

**Reloaded:** Due to many changes, the format got _WAY_ messed up and I just realized how messed up it was! So I reloaded it so words that were never supposed to be "glued" or "stuck" together is now unglued and unstuck. v**  
**

**

* * *

**

**Theme Song: **_Kaze Go Fuku Hi (This was the song that helped me write this story - no lyrics are used from it though)  
_

_Kaoru and Kenshin grew up together as neighbors and the best of friends, loving each other before they knew what such a thing meant. Until, one day, Kenshin disappeared and no matter where Kaoru went to look for him, she could not find him. With the help of her friends and the true belief of her kind heart, Kaoru will go on a journey to find and save the man she grew up loving. And in the end, Kaoru may be Kenshin's last and only hope. Because, of all the people in the world, she's the only one who believes in him still and will do anything to melt the ice in his blackening heart. Based on the Fairytale "The Snow Queen" by Hans Christian Andersen._

_

* * *

_

**Before we begin there is a few things different in this AU:**

- First off, Kaoru's birthday has been moved from early summer (June) to mid-autumn (October/November). I actually had written it as early summer when I began the story (ironically I was right on the dot at that time) but somehow an inconsistency emerged and caught me in the middle of writing the third chapter. So instead of changing it back to early summer (which would make sense since it would be more convenient for both Kaoru -- her actual birthday in RK -- and consistent with "The Snow Queen" -- the little girl, Gerda's, birthday), I thought I'd keep it at mid-autumn instead due to a technicality that pops up later... It was a larger headache than it was worth for such a small inconsistency I must say.

- Kenshin's birthday will, however, remain in the summer.

- If you have ever read "The Snow Queen" you'd notice that there are definitely changes in this mimicry. The two stories are not the same. And I hope I kept the characters, well, in character while I spin my yarn. Some say you can't have your cake and eat it too, I hope I was able to accomplish both with this story. It really inspired me because it is the few fairytales of old where a little girl goes on a journey to save a little boy that she loves with all of her heart. No prince charming in this one, since well, he's the damsel in distress! I always thought that in the RK universe that Kaoru really did save Kenshin many times by being the moral support that he needed and to ease the loneliness he thought he could live with for the rest of his life as a punishment (until he met her cue sparkly eyes.)

- In this story Kenshin enters university in the Spring term and not the usual Fall term... go figure!

- This story is set somewhere during modern times. There's cars and cities and modern day gadgets, but there's the fairytale touch of Lords and talking animals and wooden swords, magical gardens and rulers of the seasons, etc. This story was truly an inspirational writing experience, and a real hair-puller too when I knew where I wanted to go for the rest of the story except that one scene or two that just refused to be interesting to my writing pleasures... well, sit back and enjoy! I hope you will come to love reading this as much as I had of writing it!

- **WARNING:** Due to its fairytale nature, this story is slightly overloaded on the sugary contents... don't rot too many teeth while chewing on this one!

Sincerely,

_Blue Jeans_

**

* * *

**

**Our Garden of Snow and Roses**

_"Between the conception,_

_And the creation,_

_Between the emotion,_

_And the response,_

_Falls the Shadow."_

-- _T. S. Eliot_

(_The Hollow Men_)

* * *

_**Between Two Balconies Lies Two Hearts**_

_The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end._

-- _Benjamin Disraeli_

(_Henrietta Temple_)

They always said that before her birth he was want to be by himself, and until she was born thoughts of him not being alone had never entered anyone's mind. Whoever met him would later sigh in sympathy as adults often do when they encounter a child that did not act like one. But if anyone were to ask what was to be done about it, they would only shake their heads in quiet bewilderment.

His mother had unfortunately died on the childbed since she was not as sturdy as her mountain of a husband. His father soon lost himself, when he could, to drinking. Their finances got bad and by the time he was five, they were forced to move away from the city house he grew up in to a small town wedged between a great mountain, a dense forest, and a peaceful river. It was a very picturesque place, just a few days drive from the nearest city. There, Father and Son lived in a cramped little townhouse made of red bricks. It was a townhouse like the many others lining the streets next to and behind their own, and they settled there in relative peace and quiet.

The balconies between the townhouses, however, were so squished together that it wasn't but a small adult's height from one building to the next when it came to the townhouses that stood back-to-back. And there was where Kenshin first met Kaoru. Over the shaky balconies and rotted window sills, he caught her first sounds and his first sight of her from his opened window. She was a babe then, newly born from the womb, and because she had also lost a mother when she was coming into the world, Kenshin instantly felt a deep connection with the chubby cheeked girl next door when he heard of it. Even if she cried late into the night for attention and, at first, couldn't do much else but sleep and eat, Kenshin was immediately smitten with her.

The Kamiya family had also struggled their way to the townhouses, only they had been farmers before. Father Kamiya was a very stern man who believed that on the grand scale of things, because his late wife wasn't able to give him a son before her unfortunate death, a daughter will just have to do for the plans he had already made. Kenshin could also understand the life Kaoru would soon come to lead, since his own father, Hiko, was very strict himself. Even if his father wasn't sober half the time, while the remaining times of sobriety was spent remarking on the skills lacking in Kenshin, Hiko was still a very sharp and very shrewd man.

So the two children grew up, room facing room from one another. When she couldn't crawl or move around much, Kenshin would read to her loudly from his window over to hers. When she cried in the middle of the night, he would sing lullabies to her from his opened window. And though Kenshin was a loner by nature, he made a habit to include Kaoru in his activities the moment she began to be able to walk around. Kaoru would ruefully say that she remembered best chasing after Kenshin, even as a little girl. That, and somehow or other, his butt always ended up in her face when she was a chubby-cheeked youngling.

They had some great laughs and great hurts as they grew up so close to each other. At first they scaled the clothes lines between their two houses, treating the thin wires like jungle vines that Kenshin had read about in one of his adventure books. But that ended abruptly when Kenshin grew too big and heavy for the lines to support his weight, and he nearly broke his head one day when he was jumping from one tittering balcony to another. Kaoru then pointed out the fact that they were big enough now to get a small ladder to extend towards each other's rooms. Kenshin at first wasn't inclined to such an idea, but Kaoru convinced him after point out the fact that they could make it like the draw bridges in the stories Kenshin read to her once. Warmed by the thought they plotted and planned and had a grand time making a rickety thing out of the left over wood that loggers threw into their eager hands. The men were amused by their determined expressions and secretive whispers behind each other's hands as they inspected the wood they were given. It was a truly entertaining sight, watching the two shifting wood this way and that like a jigsaw puzzle they wished to piece together. The loggers laughed when Kaoru pouted while Kenshin frowned when a piece didn't fit the way they thought it would, and cheered along with them when the small _bridge_ was completed.

By the time Kenshin was twelve and Kaoru was about to turn seven, the two of them took to old oil cans half the size of their heads and stringed an old fishing line they stole from the back of the only fisherman store in town, and made a telephone between their two houses from his room to her room. That way, Kenshin had told Kaoru excitedly, he can read her to sleep every night now that Father Kamiya thought the two of them were way too old to spend their late nights over at each other's rooms. It was about that time that Father Kamiya, in hopes of distracting his daughter from spending too much time with Kenshin, taught her to plant. And Kaoru took to it happily, though she invited Kenshin over to do the deed as her smaller hands had trouble carrying some of the larger pots around.

And so, they planted irises and lilies, morning glories and moonflowers, jasmines, and finally, roses. Kaoru fawned over the irises when they bloomed, happily saying how they were the color of Kenshin's eyes. Kenshin would reply that he loved the lilies best because they were the color of her skin, and she would smile and say how the morning glories would cheer her like Kenshin would when he greeted her good morning, and Kenshin would reply that the moonflower was like her, reminding him that there is life and beauty even in the darkest of nights. But Kenshin really loved jasmine best of all because they smelled like Kaoru and her room, the place that he felt strangely more at home than his own. And Kaoru loved the roses that grew, especially after her father told her that roses were her mother's favorite flowers, because the red rose was a hue close to the color of Kenshin's hair and just as sturdy beneath its deceptive beauty and fragility.

"They're so beautiful," Kaoru would smile dreamily as the flowers all bloomed when their time came, "but the roses are surprisingly resilient. The wild ones, Papa tells me, can take care of themselves without anyone's help!" Kaoru rested her chin as she stared at the roses in fascination, her blue eyes sparkling with pride and joy, "For such a tough flower, it sure is pretty!" Kaoru nodded happily to herself.

Kenshin rested his chin on Kaoru's one tiny shoulder and watched the flowers, wanting to always see the world through her eyes. But he still secretly liked jasmine best, and Kaoru picked up on that. Every weekend, when they were in bloom, she would wrap bunches of jasmine with silk white-ribbons for him and he would keep them, hanging them up in a line against the wall till they were nothing more than dried husks. His father had once remarked on the dead flowers in his room, to which Kenshin only smiled with pure happiness as he explained that even the husks smelled wonderful, long after the flowers had died - especially after Kenshin figured out how to preserve the scent on his own. Because of that, Kenshin's room always smelled like Kaoru and it made sleep easier for him at night.

They still talked sleepily between their windows through their canned phones, and Kenshin still read Kaoru bed-times stories till she yawned and fell asleep to his voice. When Kaoru turned seven, Father Kamiya decided to teach her kendo, a sword fighting style his grandfather had brought from a land far in the East, across an entire ocean to escape persecution for the old man's beliefs. Apparently, Great-grandfather Kamiya was a ronin – which Father Kamiya solemnly explained to Kaoru to mean a wondering and masterless warrior. And with gravity and ceremony, Father Kamiya handed Kaoru her first wooden sword.

Kaoru was ecstatic, and from then on, Kaoru and Kenshin became ever closer as she practiced the art of fighting with him. When the village boys teased her about being a tomboy and when the village girls refused to play with her, Kaoru would run confused and crying to Kenshin who held her close and assured her that there was nothing wrong with her for wanting to play with swords. "Kaoru, do you remember what you said about the rose?" Kenshin asked her when she stopped crying and started to hiccup. Nodding through a hiccup, Kenshin smiled down at her tear-stained face, red-nosed and puffy faced. She hiccupped again adorably. "Remember what you said about the wild rose? How it's beautiful but strong at the same time, how it doesn't need anyone to take care of it to be the way it is." Kaoru nodded again, fighting against a hiccup and losing miserably. "Well," Kenshin explained to her as he led her to a nearby fountain with laughter in his eyes, "that's the way little Kaoru is in my eyes. So remember this, Kaoru, your strength makes you more beautiful than any one of those kids will ever be able to tell you. Because in a garden of flowers, you're the only one that doesn't need anyone else to tend to them to grow and you'd survive winters by yourself till spring, because nothing can kill you as easily as it can kill the other, weaker, flowers."

By the time Kenshin was finished, Kaoru stopped hiccupping since she drank from the fountain he brought them to. Her face glowed happily, and she was more than happy to throw her arms around Kenshin's boyish waist and declare her love for him loudly and with the same joy she always had about her. Even though Kenshin couldn't stop blushing, he was so happy himself that he held Kaoru for several moments longer than usual and whispered his sentiments in return. By the fountain, they threw in their pennies that day and pinky-swore that no matter what happened in the days and the months and the years to come, they would never part. And because they were children with no sense of change, they promised to marry without much of a conception in their heads on what marriage meant, but both were sure that there could be no other for either of them.

So the days quickly sped by till Kenshin was sixteen and Kaoru turned eleven. She had learned a love for healing the plants and animals of the forest that surrounded their small town, and everyday, Kenshin would show up at her door to take her to the forest to explore and to see if there were any animals in need of their help. In the evenings or on days that rained or snowed, they would stay in to learn and read from books in their fathers' studies, teaching each other mathematics and literature, history and science. Together, nothing seemed boring. They spent the warm days exploring every crevice in the great mountain next to them, and looked behind every tree and under every rock in the forest. As spring warmed its way through the lands, Kaoru would find the icy mountain streams that appeared as some of the snow at the top of the mountain melted, while Kenshin brought her wildflowers that they could not grow in their garden. When the summer came once more, Kaoru would eagerly throw on her bathing suit and run to the river to meet Kenshin. There, they would fish and swim and laugh the days away without care.

Slowly their youth seeped away and their love for each other grew, changing shape as they changed shape. And as Kenshin's voice deepened, Father Kamiya became more and more restless over the times his daughter spent with this child that was turning into a man. But Kaoru took no notice, for at night, even though she was too old for such things, she still begged Kenshin to read her bed time stories – even if she already knew them all by heart. After all these years, Kaoru found that she could not sleep without his voice next to her ear. They still did and shared so many of the things they had done as children that Kaoru found no difficulty adjusting to Kenshin's physical changes. So while Father Kamiya worried and Hiko pondered curiously over his son's relationship with such a young girl, they continued blissfully unaware and totally innocent of the happenings around them.

But things were rapidly changing for the two, as Hiko pushed Kenshin to make something of himself. "This is not just for you, you stupid child! This is for Kaoru as well. You don't want to have her live in a cramped townhouse like this for the rest of your lives do you?" And Kenshin acknowledged that the words were true for he wanted to be able to give Kaoru whatever she wanted. So in the fall, he took an examination and got amazingly high scores, and a well-known university a week's travel away accepted Kenshin with a full scholarship, eager to have him join the ranks of their prestigious students.

Saddened by the news of his soon departure but happy for him nonetheless, Kaoru gave Kenshin her first kiss on her twelfth birthday in the garden they had planted together. Knowing he would be leaving after winter was over, they shared her and his first real dance under the autumn moon and cool, twinkling stars. Kenshin, too desperate to hold on to every single moment spent with Kaoru, and Kaoru, not caring for the cold, spent the night and most of the morning on the roof of her house. They both ended up with severe colds and slight fevers that kept them in their respective beds and rooms for the next two weeks, missing the view of the last leaf falling in the forest but not each other as they spent their days bed-ridden but still forever talking over their make-shift telephones. To them, it was the most important times of their lives, and each precious memory together was locked away into their hearts.

Still, winter came as it inevitably does, and blew in something cold and menacing.

**-----**

High above in the atmosphere over Earth, a demon flew about. For the entire three seasons he had been cooped up with only a few flurries to relish in the far corners of the world. But there had been no one residing there but the animals that were used to the cruelties of the winter wind spirits, ice dancers and even the Snowers. No, civilization and people were much more interesting to play with. People, after all, did not like the cold, and because it really, deeply bothered them, the game became a cruel thing to play against the helpless, furless beings. But that was what made it fun, and the demon loved fun.

The Queen of the Icy Deep was as cool as ever, not letting anyone escape the ice castle until she deemed it was time. Her heart was really a block of ice, and it was so terrible that she would keep them all cooped up with nothing but dumb and slow animals to play with. With nothing else to do, the demon was really glad that fall had finally ended and winter could once more freeze the world over.

However, a brilliant idea came over him as he cooled the warm waters of the lake as he had been told by the Queen herself. His duties being all things dealing with water, after all, so to prepare them for freezing. Looking at his reflection, he remembered the mirror the size of a large, round table top, shining brightly with a similar coldness in the throne room of the Queen. He had viewed his ugly image with pleasure earlier that day, but he knew that its powers was to reflect the worst in everything and magnify ugliness, if a beautiful thing was to be placed before it, that too would become ugly, as ugly as it was beautiful. In the mirror a live flower was decayed and withered, in the mirror the good looked bad and the beautiful would have its smallest flaw enhanced till it became as ugly as it was once enchanting to behold. The mirror was made from a special type of ice, and when absorbed into animals and humans and all living beings alike, it could turn their hearts to be as black as night and drive their minds to madness.

Giggling at the ideas in his head, the demon sprung back into the castle and slinked into the empty throne room. He called upon a friend or two of his to be his accomplices, and they dragged the mirror out into the sky with them. Laughing, they played with it in the sky, reflecting the people, animals and landscapes below them and grinning at themselves and the grotesque figures they were able to reflect through the mirror.

It was all a lot of fun, much more different than the poles had been. But suddenly, a wind sprite stole the mirror from their grasps and while the demons chased it back and forth. The wind sprite dropped the mirror, and in their haste to catch it, the demons ran into each other and between their bodies the mirror cracked and split, easily breaking into small and large pieces that fell all over the unsuspecting world below.

"Oh no," one demon exclaimed, "Her Highness will punish us for this, for sure!" To which the other demons agreed solemnly and fearfully.

"But I have nothing to do with this," the wind sprite interjected and ran away towards the north.

"Damn sprites, they're always trouble!" The oldest demon grumped angrily as they watched the pieces fall.

But, the demon who came up with the idea in the first place brightened as another idea struck him. "It's not so bad, everyone," he assured his comrades. "We all know the affects the mirror has on humans and animals. In the eyes and they'll see only the ugliness in the world, one that is enhanced to encompass all else! On the tongue and all they'll know is to speak nastily to each other. In the ear and they'll never hear a wonderful sound again! And in the heart and they'll become as cold as ice, just like her majesty!"

"Yes, we all know this," another demon interjected, "but how does that help us?"

"Why," the demon in charge grinned, "winter has truly fallen now. Her Majesty surely would not object to a world that has gotten drearier. In this new world, winter may last forever in the hearts of men from this day onwards! And if that is true, no more spring or summer or fall to keep us in doors and locked away. Isn't this great? Freedom forever!"

"Freedom forever!" His comrades sighed excitedly. Soon they began playing again, giggling over the people who the mirror pierced into and beaming all the more when the mirror's victims changed their expressions to fit the disgust and horror they felt when the world they once knew also changed right before their eyes, lips, and ears. And soon, wars began all over the place while people fought each other for what they saw or heard or spoke to be evil, and all the while thinking such things as they know it, as truth.

"Winter forever," the demons chorused as they danced in the skies overhead. And as they celebrated their joyous moment, a red head young man was racing through the snow to make sure all the potted plants were covered from the unexpected storm that was said to be coming. And in that moment as he set the last plant under its protective plastic shelter, he saw a dozen or more sparkles falling from the sky overhead. In that moment of wonder and distraction, just as he reached to rub the sweat from his brow, something fell into his eye. And then an icy, piercing pain shot from his pupil and he felt as if something had ripped through his vision. Crying out in surprise, the garden door burst open as a worried Kaoru came rushing out having heard his cry of pain, the mugs of hot cocoa she had made for them both were now spilt all over the floor of her house. "Kenshin! Kenshin are you alright?"

But Kenshin couldn't see at the moment through his bad eye and all he could do was shake his head. "I don't know, Kaoru. Don't worry so much. It's just that I felt as if something got into my eye." He explained to her as they walked into the house.

"Let's go wash it then." She admonished him kindly as they descended the steps from the roof. She looked back to see the sky sparkling unusually bright that night, "Strange," she whispered softly to herself. _But beautiful_, she added in her head as she turned back to close the door. "But very, very strange."

She guided them down the stairs with Kenshin leaning on her shoulder for support. "You're such a girl when it comes to little things like this," Kaoru giggled while she teased him.

Kenshin was unusually quiet for a moment, "What did you say?" He asked, suddenly very annoyed.

"Hm?" Kaoru looked to him surprised. "I didn't say anything."

Kenshin shook his head, "Sorry, it's just that I thought I saw your mouth move... never mind."

When Kaoru was sure that the cool water must have flushed out whatever it was that had gotten into Kenshin's eye, Kaoru lifted his face and toweled it dry for him, making him lean down so she could have good leverage. "You really are a baby," she grinned at him nonetheless, "but I still love you." However, when he opened his eyes, she gasped out in shock and surprise at the sight before her. "Ken-Kenshin," Kaoru grasped his face and looked deeply into his eyes. "Your one eye is the color of gold, no, like a tiger-eye stone." She brushed away his bangs and showed him his reflection, but all Kenshin saw was ugliness all around him.

Even Kaoru, his constantly beautiful Kaoru, seemed ugly in his eyes standing next to him. Kenshin could not help but cringe for Kaoru's face was distorted and grotesque, but so did everything else look as every object he laid eyes on seemed to have lost the life and beauty he once admired. "I'm going home," he said instead depressed at the new world he saw before him when, after blinking, nothing changed. Kenshin's non-caring attitude and lethargic actions surprised Kaoru greatly, but when she tried to intercept him, he carelessly shoved her aside.

"Kenshin!" She called after him, hurt and shocked for he had never been so cruel to her before.

But Kenshin didn't hear her as he walked out of her front door without a backward glance or even a goodbye. That night, he didn't speak to Kaoru on their telephone, no matter how many times she called to him. And though, Kaoru could not understand what had happened in such a brief period of time, everything had changed.

That winter, Kenshin wouldn't play with Kaoru anymore. Instead, he secluded himself in his bare bedroom when he wasn't out getting into one fight or another with someone because he point out the ugliness of their character. He stopped talking to anyone with the polite way he always did, instead he became forward and rude and uncaring. Some of the biggest bullies in the neighborhood boys and the most manipulating of the neighborhood girls, followed Kenshin with awe in their eyes while declaring how he saw the truth of the world and spoke it without fear, but Kaoru knew everything that Kenshin spoke now was a lie. That winter, Kenshin grew thin, for he would only eat when his father forced him to, and he argued with the old man a lot more than he ever did. The jasmine flowers he had so carefully strewn about his room were torn down and Kenshin earned a habit of opening his windows till it became icy cold in his room, but even when he got sick from the chill he refused even the suggestion of closing his windows. Kenshin never spoke back to Kaoru kindly again, not even when she called out to him from her own window or on the streets when she saw him. When Kaoru would go calling on their telephone, or even at his door, he refused to answer her.

There were no snow angels or snow man or snowball fights that winter, not with Kenshin anyway. And even if he had wanted to play, Kaoru wasn't so sure she would have complied since Kenshin became rough and cruel when he played with others their age and even older. The kids in the neighborhood learned to fear Kenshin that winter, and so did some of the adults. But Kaoru, though greatly saddened, still visited him each day even if he didn't want to see her, even if she was entirely disgusted with what he did or what she had heard he did. She made them hot cocoa, which Kenshin refused to drink, but she drank in front of him just for the company, even if he never looked to her or indicated that he heard her speak. Kaoru faithfully went to see him every day to be with him and to speak to him. By the end of the winter, Kenshin went to school without a word to Kaoru that he was departing. She showed up just in time to see the last of his meager possessions loaded onto the small, red car Hiko bought for him a year ago when Kenshin was still kind and good.

"Have a good trip Kenshin," Kaoru clasped her hands together hopefully but he acknowledged her no more than he had done the entire winter. Kaoru felt the anger she always did at his newly acquired blank expressions, but she had already hit him and yelled at him all she could before and all to no effect. Kenshin never even flinched away from her blows either and in the end, she ended up hurting herself more through her actions than him. Anyone else, she knew, he would have retaliated against, but somehow this Kenshin knew that to hurt her best was to allow the helplessness in Kaoru grow. This Kenshin knew that if Kaoru hurt him with even the smallest of blows, she would feel it more harshly than he. Still, she did not leave him.

When it came to goodbyes though, Kaoru grasped his head and kissed him very softly, hoping to convey all her emotions in the innocent touch of lips to cheek. But Kenshin was cold beneath her fingers, even though the spring sun was high in the sky like a bright beacon of warmth that Kenshin's body would not absorb. "Please take care of yourself," she told him with concern in her eyes for his well-being.

Kenshin's strange purple and gold eyes blinked at her slowly. "Kaoru?" he said her name for the first time in weeks, seeming to be waking from a dream for just a moment. But then, as she pulled back in surprise, the effect was gone and he pulled completely away from her. "Your warm," he rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hand distastefully as if the contact had burned. He regarded her with the same distaste till her heart ached at the disapproval she found there. "I don't like _that_."

Without another word, Kenshin got into the car and drove off. Hiko stood by and touched Kaoru's shaking shoulders. "You okay, kid?" the older man asked worriedly. "He's been an ass all winter. I don't know what came over the stupid kid." Hiko apologized in his own gruff way.

Kaoru looked briefly to Hiko with tear-filled eyes. The usual spark in her blue gaze was now dark with the emotions of rage and hurt. "That idiot!" Kaoru turned away and decided to shout after the car, instead. "Why can't you even say a proper goodbye?" she cried and rubbed her eyes trying to stop her tears from flowing. "I'm so angry at him," Kaoru whispered, "that I can't stop crying. I'm sorry." Kaoru went home depressed and angry but it didn't take long for Kaoru to call up Kenshin or write to him for every week that they were apart.

He never replied to any of her mail or picked up one of her calls, but Kaoru was stubborn and determined and she did it everyday nonetheless. "Even if he doesn't want to hear my voice, that idiot will have to!" She huffed. And when summer came, Kaoru was eager to see Kenshin return. Only, he didn't come home. Kenshin had never gotten to the university, it appears. He had disappeared on the way there.

* * *

_**To be continued…**_


	2. The Imprints Left by a Sheath

**Our Garden of Snow and Roses**

_"Between the conception,_

_And the creation,_

_Between the emotion,_

_And the response,_

_Falls the Shadow."_

-- _T. S. Eliot_

(_The Hollow Men_)

_**

* * *

**_

_**The Imprints Left by a Sheath**_

_In every parting there is an image of death._

-- _George Eliot_

(_Amos Barton_)

Hiko was beside himself with worry for the longest time, but no traces of his son were found except for an abandoned car a few miles down the road from the town Kenshin grew up in. They never found any signs of a struggle, or anything else for that matter. Kenshin had apparently forgotten to fill the gas tank before he left home and his car ran onto empty pretty soon after he left Kaoru behind. But instead of walking back to town or going forward to the nearest gas station, Kenshin disappeared on the road, and possibly, in the woods. Any trail he might have left behind, the police told them sadly, would have gone cold by now. With such hopeless news, Hiko began to drink more and more, losing himself to alcohol and searching for that lost hope at the bottom of every single glass he drank.

Kaoru couldn't stop crying for a week after the news reached her. And then for a month she stayed in her room, hugging close their telephone and watching the sky change color from day to night and night to day. She grew thin and weak, but Father Kamiya could do nothing but watch his only child whither away.

Father Kamiya was at the end of his wits by the end of the month. He had yelled at Kaoru, tried to talk sense into her, dragged her out of her room and made her sit outside, and once, he had even slapped her to try to wake her up to the reality she abandoned since Kenshin's announced disappearance. But Kaoru just sat listlessly staring, or worse, her eyes would tear up and she would silently cry with all the grief of the world in her eyes, something that hurt her father more to watch than anything else. The flowers in her beloved garden did not flourish but withered like its owner without care. And half of the summer passed with Kaoru sitting on the floor of her room, sometimes crying and sometimes not, just remembering everything that Kenshin was to her, and feeling her heart break into a million, tiny pieces.

She was oblivious to the last of the spring flowers falling to be replaced by the lush green leaves of summer. It would have pained her more if she had realized the day that marked the anniversary of Kenshin having first taught Kaoru to swim, but she had lost track of time. Once, she had run to her window because she had thought she had heard Kenshin return, but he hadn't. Kaoru would even take the cold and silent Kenshin to no Kenshin at all. But Kenshin didn't come back. Even Hiko gave up on his disappeared son (presumed dead by the police, though they didn't have the heart to say it to Hiko's face). When Hiko began to turn Kenshin's room into a study though, Kaoru for the second time since Kenshin's disappearance moved up from her place on the floor and stumbled over to the window. "What are you doing, Mister Hiko?" She rasped from her place across the way, her voice husky from disuse.

"He's not coming back, that stupid son of mine," Hiko sighed deeply, his words lacking the mocking cheer he used to have. Hiko looked like he had gained ten years in the last two months after finding that his son disappeared. "So, I thought I could change his room into something useful, that's what he would have wanted."

"What?" Kaoru demanded angrily. "Kenshin's coming back! Don't you dare say something like that! He's coming back, you'll see! How dare you change his room when he's coming back? How dare you say you know him when you barely said two words to him each day when he was here?" Kaoru began to cry again, and she hated how she's been crying all this time. Even when Kaoru thought she was all cried out, she would always end up finding more tears to shed. _It wasn't fair! Why did Kenshin have to go? Why did Hiko have to send him off to school like that?_ Kaoru wanted to demand the answers to her unanswered questions but there was no one left to ask. She would have been happy as long as Kenshin was by her side, forever! That was all Kaoru had ever known and dreamt of, anyway. But now, there was no Kenshin for those dreams to be fulfilled with.

"He's gone, Kaoru. Let him go." Hiko said to her sadly, standing out of place at the window sill Kenshin used to always occupy in both her memories and her heart. But Kaoru would not hear of it and for the first time in twelve years, she slammed closed the window connecting her to Kenshin and his room, along with her blinds. She didn't want to see Hiko where he didn't belong, not where Kenshin used to always be waiting for her, greeting her with his kind and familiar smile. And the days continued listlessly once more without the gentle presence of the person most precious to Kaoru in all the world.

Still, one day, Father Kamiya dragged his daughter out onto the roof of their house and angrily pointed at her dead garden that lay wasted before them both. "Look at this place, Kaoru! This is the state of the garden you two made together, and these are the flowers you have planted. This place is just like you, Kaoru, or you will soon become like it if you continue as you do now. Your garden is dead, Kaoru. Do you really want to die? Is that what you think Kenshin would have wanted you to be like once he's gone?" When she didn't reply, Father Kamiya only became even angrier, "I had thought that I raised a stronger daughter than this," he spat out disgusted by the tears that flowed down from her eyes, unbidden.

Kaoru's eyes focused on the once beautiful flowers that now looked like dry weeds. For the first time since he had been gone, she shed tears for something that wasn't because of Kenshin and something that hadn't anything to do with the memory of him. "Poor flowers," she whispered through her unused throat. "Poor Kenshin," she sighed. That one moment out of her shell was replaced by the shadows of Kaoru's memories once more.

Exasperated, Father Kamiya threw his hands in the air and left her on the roof to think through his words and her actions. Kaoru lifted the plastic with unsteady hands, but a sparrow landed on her shoulder then. "Don't cry," the sparrow said to her, much to the surprise of Kaoru. "All the flowers are dead because the love you once had for this place is gone," the sparrow ruffled its feathers. "Don't lose hope, kid," the sparrow flicked its tail and leapt off.

"Don't cry," a thousand chirping voices of sparrows came from overhead and all around her. "Smile at the sun. Because, as long as you have hope, you'll find what you're looking for!"

And Kaoru looked uncertainly at the bright, piercing sky, blue like the small star-like flowers Kenshin and she had planted but a year ago. She bent down, wanting to disregard the hopeful cries of the tittering birds and gently lifted the plastic sheet over her dead garden instead. But what she found made her gasp out loud, for of all the flowers Kenshin and Kaoru had planted, one flower remained alive even though it had suffered like all the rest of the flowers during Kenshin and Kaoru combined neglect. The flower did not die because of her long absence or Kenshin's cold disinterest. For there, in the piles of dried, weeded corpses of dead flowers, a single wild rose had budded, red and beautiful beneath the sun, just waiting to bloom when its time came. Its thorns stood menacingly out to anyone who would dare to harm it, but the scent of it was already wafting sweetly with promise into the open air.

Kaoru leaned over and cupped the bud between her two hands, and smiled a real smile. Hope and happiness had fled her since the night Kenshin told her that something had gotten into his eye. Now, finally, she had found a sign that gave her hope above all others.

_"Remember what you said about the wild rose? How it's beautiful but strong at the same time. How it doesn't need anyone to take care of it to be the way it is. Well, that's the way Kaoru is in my eyes..."_ Kaoru smiled brightly at the memory and raised her head up into the sky, opening her arms and mouth to receive the sunlight and the fresh breeze washing over her.

"Thank you Mister Sparrow," she waved at the fluttering group overhead. "I'll remember what you told me!" And from then on, Kaoru had a mission. She was determined to find out where Kenshin had gone, and even if she had to go through the gates of Hades to find him, she would. In the heat of the summer sun, beneath the bright blue skies overhead, Kaoru changed as well.

**-----**

All throughout the rest of the summer Kaoru climbed the mountains and scoured the forest. She looked in every crevice, turned over every rock, and knocked in the hollow of every tree. She asked the animals she had fed and healed throughout her life, and they spread the word through the forest to see if anyone had seen a young man with hair the color of a cardinal's feather and one eye the color of spring irises while the other was that of a tiger's eye. But no one remembered such a striking boy walking through the woods without Kaoru by his side. After two weeks of searching up and down the way, Kaoru collapsed helplessly by the river they had spent every summer swimming, laughing, and playing in. She had been so determined in the beginning of her search for him, but now, once more she felt the tears of hopelessness itching at her eyes. Though she fought against it, a few still escaped and dropped its salty contents into the clear waters before her.

A fish swam over, surprised by the taste. "Hey, little girl," the fish poked its head out of the waters. "Stop polluting the waters with your tears, it's making everything salty and bitter. A trout like myself would never want to taste or live or even swim in such waters!"

Kaoru stopped and blushed, quickly rubbing away the evidence of her tears. "I'm sorry Miss Trout," she bowed her head shamefully. "It's just that my greatest friend in the whole world is missing, and my heart feels so broken without him. I just couldn't help but be hurt by the very thought of another day without him by my side, but no matter where I look, I can't seem to find him."

"Oh, humans," the fish waved it off. "Don't you know there are more fishes in the river?"

"But Kenshin is Kenshin. No one can replace him!" Kaoru protested. "H-have you seen a boy with hair as red as a cardinal's feather and one eye the color of spring irises while the other is like that of a tiger's eye?"

The trout thought and thought but shook its head. "Not since last summer and he was with you then, though both his eyes were the color of irises at that time, if I remember correctly." The trout swam down and away without saying another word after that. Kaoru really felt like crying all over again when she was left on her own, but the trout returned to her side just when she was ready to go home and have herself a good cry. "A tortoise down the way may know something," the trout suggested and Kaoru felt hope flow through her all over again, eagerly she followed the trout along the grassy bank of the river to the old tortoise sunbathing on a sandy patch in the middle of the flowing waters.

"Mister Tortoise!" Kaoru called over the chuckling river. "Have you see a boy with hair as red as a cardinal's feather and one eye the color of spring irises while the other is like that of a tiger's eye?"

The slow tortoise stuck out his small head from his great shell and looked about to locate the voice he heard. When he saw the dark-haired Kaoru at the bank, he answered in a low and monotonous voice. "Not since last summer, but both his eyes were irises then and he was always at your side," the tortoise turned its head away. "But something strange floated down the river the first day of spring this year," the tortoise stretched his neck in thought. "I heard the young man disappeared around that time, yes?" Kaoru was surprised at the tortoise's knowledge but nodded eagerly in acquiesce. "Well then, why don't you go over to the Beaver's dam and see if he had collected it from the waters?"

Kaoru thanked both the tortoise and the trout for their help and assured them both that she knew the way to the Beavers' dam. Kaoru moved up the river once and got to the beaver's house. "Mister Beaver?" Kaoru called out but no one responded and she walked all along the banks, looking for a way to catch the beaver's attention. "Mister Beaver, are you home?" She called and called until evening set in. And then, she saw a round little door in the dirt by the bank. "Hm, I wonder if he's in there." Kaoru thought determinedly to herself, for she was not leaving till she got at least a word out of the beaver.

So, kneeling, she knocked on the little round door. It was all very strange because she had never seen a door in the ground before, not for a beaver anyway. "Who's calling, who's calling?" A voice asked from behind the door.

"Is that you, Mister Beaver?" Kaoru asked, "My name is Kaoru and I've come to ask if you have information on someone I'm looking for."

"Now why is a little girl like you asking such a question like that?" The Beaver revealed himself in the dark shadows as he poked out his furry head curiously.

"Have you seen a boy with hair red as a cardinal's feather and one eye the color of spring irises while the other is like that of a tiger's eye?" The beaver gave the same reply as all the other creatures. "The tortoise down the river told me that something floated by the first day of spring this year and that you might have it. That's the day Kenshin disappeared, you see," Kaoru explained. "I just wanted to see if the item belonged to him."

The beaver looked her up and down suspiciously with its dark, button like eyes. "And what if I don't want to give it to you?"

Kaoru blinked surprised at this, "W-why, it's not yours, is it?" she demanded heatedly. "If it's Kenshin's then I'm going to return it to him when I find him."

The beaver stubbornly refused, but another voice called out from the depth. "Give it to her," a gruff voice came through the opening.

"Father," the beaver whined. "I really liked it and it looks so nice in our den."

"Give it to her," Father Beaver spoke harshly. "She saved you when you were but a babe, did you not know? Her and that boy helped us out many times in the past, even before you were born." The younger beaver gave her a hard, glittering stare before scurrying back into the den.

"Th-thank you Mister Beaver," she whispered. An old fur head stuck out from the hole in the ground and looked Kaoru up and down. "No mistaking it," the beaver sighed. "Just like your mother too," and Kaoru blinked her wide eyes at the beaver in surprise. "Didn't know she helped the animals out too?" Father Beaver wiggled his nose at her and made a sound that was suspiciously like a snort. "She was good at what she did. A very good family you come from. And tonight we return one of your many deeds to us with a small favor, yes."

Kaoru opened her mouth but the younger beaver returned with a long and thin something in his mouth. He reluctantly handed it over to Kaoru who held the object in the dark, finding herself having a hard time seeing it. "What is it?" She asked curiously, testing its weight in her hand and wondering why it felt strangely familiar.

Exasperated, the beaver waddled over to her and nudged her hand till the object was revealed under the bright moonlight. Kaoru gasped, it was one part of the set of samurai sword collection that Kenshin treasured, the scabbard of his smaller blade. The sword set was one of the few things Hiko ever gave to Kenshin and Kaoru knew Kenshin treasured it above most of his other possessions, though Kenshin always insisted that he treasured the gifts Kaoru gave him more than anything else. Wrapped around the wooden sheath was the string beads Kaoru made for Kenshin when she was but six years old. At that time, she had wanted to braid it into Kenshin's hair, but he had laughingly deterred her by promising to keep it on him always by threading it securely on the small scabbard of the set of blades he owned.

Kaoru closed her eyes at the memory and clutched the object close to her heart. "Thank you," she whispered to the beavers. Her voice was filled with gratitude and the overwhelming relief of having finally found a trace of the young man she had always loved. "Thank you for this!"

She returned home that day to a worried Father Kamiya, but he was surprised to see that Kaoru was smiling again. She ate the food he placed before her with more heart than he'd seen her express in months. When she was done, she helped him with the dishes before kissing him goodnight and going to bed.

Kaoru opened her window to see the empty study that replaced Kenshin's old room. She put her ear to the telephone they had made together, nostalgically tracing the ridges and bumps that had gathered after years of use. She hummed herself a sad little tune from the bottom of her heart that came to her when she thought of Kenshin.

Somehow, lately she kept seeing him surrounded by coldness and looking very lost and lonely in her dreams. A sense of urgency overcame her and Kaoru knew she must go look for him as soon as possible. But the day had exhausted her and Kaoru understood that she was far weaker physically than she had ever been in her life. And so, she planned and schemed on preparing herself for the long journey ahead.

The beavers had said that the object came floating from up the river, and she would follow it as soon as she had regained her strength. Now, she must store her energy and the little money Kenshin and she had saved up over the years. When she was ready, she would set out into the world to look for Kenshin. And wherever he was, she would find him, and then, she would bring him home.

**-----**

So passed the first summer Kaoru ever spent by herself without Kenshin. It was strange and lonely, and every day, Kaoru thought of him with worry in her heart. Always, somehow or another, she could only picture him cold and alone out in the world somewhere. Kaoru knew that she was the only one who could save him now. The police wouldn't look for Kenshin the way she would since he left nothing behind but a cold trail, and Hiko had long given up hope, moving on with his life already by the looks of it. And Kenshin, if he really was the way she kept seeing him in her dreams, then he desperately needed her help.

She celebrated his birthday alone that year, sitting by the river and doing all the things they used to do together, by herself. She bought him a present and stored it away for when she would find him or when he would return to the village. Kaoru cried that day, because all she wanted and wished for that year was for Kenshin to return to her, but she stopped herself after only a few tears fell. Kenshin wouldn't want to see her like this, at least, not the Kenshin she grew up with.

Instead, she forced herself to smile even if he wasn't there to see it. Because the Kenshin she saw in her dreams was cold and alone. Kaoru knew from the bottom of her heart that one day he will need her to be the strength and the warmth that was lacking inside him now. She would not give up to tears or waiting, she would never give up on Kenshin.

Kaoru trained harder than she had ever done before that summer. She knew it was imperative that she learn as much as she could the art of sword fighting with her boken. She still helped the animals out whenever she could and the village doctor lent her his book on herbs and medicine when he saw Kaoru's dedication and sudden return from listlessness. On heated afternoons that were too hot to practice in, she would sit in the shade and read with a vigor that she had never before employed.

Late at night, Kaoru would study the geography of the world, not really sure of the places she would go but preparing herself the best she could for the great unknown outside her safe little town. And when summer was nearing an end, Kaoru packed one small satchel of spare clothing, money, and some food, along with a few miscellaneous items to prepare for her departure. She wrapped away most carefully Kenshin's wakazashi sheath and her own wooden boken – in case she ran into someone who needed or aid, or she ran into bandits who would take advantage of a helpless, little girl like herself.

She was especially kind to her father that last evening. She made him dinner, talked about his day with him, and kissed him goodnight, a habit she had abandoned when Kenshin had changed and she became filled with worry. Before she went to bed that night, she hugged her father goodbye without words. He regarded her with a bit of worry in his eyes, but she smiled as many genuine smiles as she could muster.

It would be a lie to say that Kaoru was not afraid or that she did not have doubts about leaving her Father behind. She knew that others might very well regard what she was about to do to be both reckless and foolhardy, especially since she did not know for sure if Kenshin was alive or dead. It was a great gamble at best, and she did not doubt her Father would be filled with both worry and hurt after she leaves. But she recalled the great coldness in Kenshin's gaze the last few months they had been together, and the loneliness that hung around him in her dreams. Kaoru knew, she was the only one who could save him now. She knew he needed her. She had no doubt about going to him, and she refused to back away from her course of action, regardless of fears or doubts.

So that night, when the moon was high in the sky and the first breeze of autumn came blowing through Kaoru's window, she crept out of her bedroom window, through the draw bridge Kenshin and her had never taken apart, and entered into Hiko's new study. She turned one last time to view her familiar bedroom, but resolved herself when her eyes landed on their rusted telephone that had not been used for more than half a year. With Kenshin in mind, she tip-toed through his house, pass a snoring Hiko who slept drunkenly in his own living room and exited out of Kenshin's house.

Running in the dark to the side of the river was difficult with the moon as her only light in the sky. But it was a clear autumn night, and the breeze was fresh with change. Following the river as she had done many times in her preparations to leave, Kaoru felt her way through the darkness.

Further and further away she drew from the village she had known all her life, never looking back as her entire attention was now focused on not losing her footing in the dark. Kaoru passed the place she had met Miss Trout and quietly slipped past the great humped shadow of the resting tortoise. She left behind the mountain Kenshin and she had climbed as children, and the forest they had explored throughout their lives. Step by step, the distance grew between Kaoru and all that she had grown up knowing, until there was nothing to be seen but the shapes of trees in the night. And even though a voice constantly told her, _"You can go back still. It'll be safer in your bedroom. Kenshin won't be waiting for you, he's probably just playing a prank and coming back to his house right now."_ Kaoru determinedly walked on, refusing to let her fears over-take her in the darkness of the night.

"He needs me,"Kaoru whispered to herself determinedly. _ "And I need him,"_ her heart replied to each labored breath she drew. In the distance a wild animal howled at the moon, and the fear in Kaoru's heart blossomed and threatened to consume her. But Kaoru refused to turn back. She refused to become weak, to go back to helplessness and despair, when she knew that the one person who needed her now was the one person who had always believed in her most – Kenshin. _"I'm coming for you, Kenshin!"_ Kaoru thought determinedly to herself. And without regret, Kaoru let go of everything she ever knew that night by the bank of the lulling river, her last line to a treasured past, as she entered into a new world she would soon learn that no amount of preparations could have prepared her for.

* * *

_**To be continued…**_


	3. The First Taste of Temptation

**Our Garden of Snow and Roses**

_"Between the conception,_

_And the creation,_

_Between the emotion,_

_And the response,_

_Falls the Shadow."_

-- _T. S. Eliot_

(_The Hollow Men_)

_**

* * *

**_

_**The First Taste of Temptation in a Garden of Roses**_

_Footfalls echo in the memory_

_Down the passage which we did not take_

_Towards the door we never opened_

_Into the rose-garden._

-- _T. S. Eliot_

(_Burnt Norton_)

Kaoru wondered by the river, following the loquacious waters. In the morning, she sleepily and stubbornly trudged onwards, even though her feet felt like lead, and her socks and shoes were soaked. However, Kaoru brightened when she saw a small raft caught up against rocks, seemingly abandoned in the woods as it wavered against the lapping waves. She hurried her tired legs and thought to herself, _"Just a little nap in the raft won't hurt,"_ and tried to make the best of it, using her knapsack as a pillow for her little, wooden bed. She soon drifted into a deep sleep, soothed by the rocking of the small boat.

However, because Kaoru was so tired, she did not check how secure against the rocks her little boat was. So while she slept, a playful water sprite from the south spotted the small raft and with a few playful pushes here and there it began to drift from the shore and flew up the river on its own accord, with the help of the local river nymphs that giggled at their mischief. Kaoru hardly stirred at the commotion, lulled by the motion of the waters and her own weariness.

Kaoru slept like the dead. That is until the bright afternoon sun forced her to acknowledge its existence in the sky overhead, once Kaoru's boat exited from the shades provided by the branches of the trees lining the river. The light forced her weary eyes to open just it slowed to a stop. To Kaoru's great surprise, she found that her boat had knocked up against a small pier, ending its swift journey down the river. Rising from her place at the floor of the raft, she looked bewilderedly about. The landscape certainly changed from the one she went to sleep in and Kaoru had a feeling that she had drifted quite far off from where she had been before. How far though, Kaoru couldn't say, but far enough for the landscape to be very different and foreign to her eyes. And because Kaoru didn't bring a watch with her, she couldn't even tell the time of day it was at that moment, or how long she had been dreaming.

The sun suggested the afternoon, but Kaoru would not be able to tell how long a time she had spent on the waters. Yawning, she stretched this way and that, and clamored out of the raft. Wherever she was, there wasn't much she could do about it now. Stepping up the pier, she immediately saw a house, the only house, surrounded by the trees of the forest. It was large and white, very picturesque and secluded. The picket fence jutted from the ground in a pristine and even row, the tiled roof was a pretty navy-blue. The front door was a rich, deep brown with frosted glass and gold trim. The only surprising thing about the house was the bright orange windowsills that seemed out of place on such an elegant and large building like structure. It looked quite new and when Kaoru opened the picket door, it did not squeak so she knew whoever lived in the place certainly took care of every detail in and around the house.

Timidly, for she had never seen so rich a place except in the picture books in Hiko's library, Kaoru walked to the front door. Her hand barely placed two knocks upon it when the door opened and Kaoru came eye to eye with the greenest eyes she'd ever seen. The man didn't look very friendly as he glared down at her expectantly, "What do you want?" His voice was cool and his question was rude, but his tone was so indifferent that Kaoru had a hard time being offended. Well, Kaoru wasn't too offended except for the fact that the stranger was already ordering her around. Kaoru's gaze took in the sight of strange man's face, noting the shock of white hair on his head and the grim line of his firm lips. By the strangers hair color, she would have had a hard time saying he was young, but his face and features were smooth and handsome, lacking the worn wrinkles that comes with age.

He was the most handsome man Kaoru had ever seen, next to Kenshin that is. "My name is Kaoru," Kaoru pointed to herself. "I don't mean to intrude, but can you tell me where I've drifted to? I also don't have a watch to tell the time of day and I'm a bit lost as well."

The stranger looked her up and down, his gaze cool and indifferent. "Aren't you a bit young to be wondering by yourself?" He asked her instead.

Annoyed, Kaoru crossed her arms over her chest, not at all intimidated by the stranger's height or build or cold exterior. "I'm old enough to know you're being very rude." Kaoru answered hotly.

The stranger smirked at her spirit and hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "I'm tending to something right now, come in if you want. It's a bit past two in the afternoon and you're pretty deep in the forest. The nearest place from here is by boat but mine's already stored away for the coming winter. My name is Enishi by the way, and I'm the only one here." Kaoru walked passed a wall of photographs with a single woman as its focal point, though there was a boy and perhaps her family all around her as well. "That's my older sister," Enishi told her when he saw her pause in the hallway. His expression was very withdrawn again, "She doesn't live here anymore, so I'm by myself. Like I said before, I'm the only one living in this house now, and probably the only one you'll meet for a long ways from here."

Kaoru nodded and turned to follow him into the kitchen. Enishi turned out to be surprisingly talkative, but Kaoru guessed it was because he really didn't see anyone much. There was a similar lonely air about him that the Kenshin in her dreams exuded, though Enishi was not half as cold as Kenshin had seemed in those visions Kaoru had of him. Enishi himself did not seem to be the type to dish out personal history on the first meeting, but by the way he talked, Kaoru had the feeling he'd not seen anyone for a very, very long time.

"Do you like orange juice?" Enishi asked from the kitchen. Kaoru hurried into the place and smiled with a grateful nod. "It's strange seeing a girl as young as you wondering about this part of the woods by yourself." Enishi commented as he poured her a glass. "What brought you here, anyway? Where are your parents? Do you know the way back home?"

Kaoru didn't hesitate to tell her story, because she hoped Enishi, secluded as he was, might know something or heard of something that might help her find Kenshin. "My greatest friend in the entire world disappeared last winter on the way to his university. They didn't find anything but his car on the side of the road. Kenshin is very important to me, and I know the police wouldn't look for him because it took so long to even realize he was gone. Even his own father changed his old room into a study already, as if there was no chance of Kenshin returning -- alive or dead." Kaoru looked down sadly at her cup but refused to cry in front of this man at this moment. She glanced up at the white ceiling, also tastefully done, trying to stop her tears from falling from her eyes. "Kenshin and I grew up together. I don't think anyone out there in the world will look for him now except me. So I prepared myself all summer for this trip. I don't know where I'm going, or where he is, but if he's alive, I'll find him. And then—and then we can be together again."

"Fathers are like that," Enishi finally said after a long pause when she finished her story. "Mine would do the same your friend's father had done. After my sister... left, he turned her room into a study too. We had a great fight about it, but to him, his children were just people that came and went in his life." Enishi straightened and looked out the glass windows at the setting sun. "In the end, everyone gets left behind by that very dear person in their hearts if they're not the ones doing the leaving. No one can replace the hole that special person left behind, but the adults insist that it could be done. They all say the same things too: 'Move on, there are others in the world other to replace the one that left. Don't you want to live your life? You should think of yourself now, instead of the past.' Such things I really hate to hear, as if being selfish would make me feel better about being left behind. As if I could easily forget the most important person in my heart and that it is so easy to move on. But what they don't understand is that you can't move on, that you are stuck in this hole with all the memories most precious and most painful to your heart."

Kaoru gripped her glass, feeling a bond with Enishi for that was the way she felt about Kenshin. Hearing the words spoken so clearly as a reflection of her emotions that, up to that moment, no one understood, Kaoru felt the tears she'd been trying to hide slide down her face. "Thank you," she said, "for understanding." She explained when Enishi's pained look turned to worry when he saw her face marred by tears. Kaoru's blue eyes sparkled darkly, like the reflection of a night's sky in moonlit waters before she quickly tried to wipe away her tears. Enishi blinked at her gaze, he had never seen such emotion in someone as young as her before. But through it all, she was smiling happily, as if what he said brought her joy, a painful type of joy. Her embarrassed sniffles broke the mood as he teased and laughed with her.

There, in his lonely kitchen, this girl radiated a love for someone only she remembered with her whole heart. Somehow, Enishi felt himself moved by her quest and was slowly beginning to really envy this person he didn't even know existed till she had knocked on his door. This Kenshin was very lucky to have someone like her, Enishi thought.

"You can stay the night, if you want." Enishi told her, resolving that if he could keep Kaoru there with him forever, he would. In the woods, Enishi had been by himself for so long he could only vaguely recall what it meant to not feel lonely. No one came to visit, and none of his family members had returned from the places they had gone. Until now, Enishi had forgotten entirely about human companionship, and how warm such a feeling could be.

"Enishi," Kaoru suddenly looked to him as if she remembered something. "Have you seen a boy with hair the color of a cardinal's feather, one eye the color of spring irises and the other that of a tiger's eye?" Surprised by this question, Enishi thought on it a bit. If he did, at this moment, he wouldn't have told her that he did. Still, he didn't remember seeing such a striking man, except...

"No," Enishi shook his head instead. He didn't really want to lie to Kaoru's hopeful face, so he turned his gaze outside again. "I don't remember seeing such a person." From the corner of his eyes he saw her slump in disappointment at the news. "Hey," he tried to cheer her up. "We have a garden here, you know? My sister and I planted it together when we were young," Enishi smiled boyishly at Kaoru then. "Want to see it?"

Kaoru wanted to say no, but at the hopeful look on Enishi's face, she nodded reluctantly. _"It couldn't hurt to spend a little time with such a lonely man,"_ Kaoru reasoned to herself. So he took her around the kitchen to a beautiful door with windows clearly displaying a part of the garden. Kaoru walked out into the garden and gasped as she looked around, everywhere there were flowers in abundance. Some were the types she had planted with Kenshin in their own small garden on her small roof, and others she'd never even knew existed until that very moment. It was a beautiful garden, and her feet carried her all over. Enishi smiled at the awe on her face as he pointed out this flower and that. Kaoru looked and looked, her eyes lingering at the fountain with nymph's bathing under cool waters, but she stopped completely at the section of the garden where every rose of every color bloomed.

"Roses are very resilient, aren't they?" Kaoru asked softly.

Enishi happily agreed and told her how roses were his sister's favorite flowers. "She wanted one of every kind and so she planted them here. This is her special garden. When I was very young, I would help her plant the flowers and take care of them everyday. We would play here too, and she would laugh and smile for me like she would never do for another person." Enishi was saddened by the memories.

Kaoru gazed at the red roses, because they reminded her of Kenshin's hair. She looked all around and the flowers just reminded her of Kenshin telling her how she was to grow up as resilient as roses were. "Kenshin," Kaoru whispered. This time the tears that ran down her face were very sad and filled with her emotions for Kenshin, each drop was one of times she could never call back to relive as she wished to.

_"So remember this, Kaoru, your strength makes you more beautiful..."_

And Kaoru sobbed before the flowers until she was sleepy and tired. Her head pounded and her face was puffy from the salty tears. Enishi held her through it all, and carried her to the guest room in his big house. "Stay," he compelled her. "Stay and rest." So Kaoru stayed and rested, closing her eyes to the world and her painful memories. It was easy to do so in such a house, secluded from the world as it was. It was easy to do it with a person like Enishi who was also trying to run away from painful memories by living in a place filled only with happy ones. "You only have to remember what you want to," Enishi assured her as her eyes begin to drop. "Stay with me here, forever," he told her softly as he kissed her forehead tenderly. But Kaoru did not hear the last part of Enishi's words, nor did she feel the soft press of his lips on her forehead for she had already fallen into a deep, deep sleep. And this time, instead of Kenshin, she dreamt of a large, beautiful garden to play in and a large white house to call home.

For once, there was no Kenshin in her dreams.

**-----**

In the morning, Enishi rose and woke Kaoru with sweet smelling breakfast. When she woke, Kaoru couldn't remember a day without Enishi in her life. So she smiled happily and helped him wash the dishes in the kitchen when they were done with eating. Kaoru ran into the garden after breakfast, excited to see the flowers in bloom. She ran and ran until she got to a place where it was empty of any flowers. Kaoru looked at the freshly turned dirt, her head tilted this way and that. _"Wasn't there supposed to be something there?"_ Kaoru thought, feeling slightly bewildered.

Enishi came and rested his hands on Kaoru's thin shoulders. "What are you looking at?" He inquired.

"It feels empty there, somehow," Kaoru said puzzled as she pointed to the dark place where the earth was bare to the eyes. "Was there something here before?" She inquired as she pointed to the empty space.

But Enishi shook his head and smiled at her, gently rapping his knuckles on her forehead. "Silly," he teased her, "Have you not been sleeping enough?"

Kaoru rubbed her forehead stubbornly, "I was sure," she muttered to herself. But then shrugged when she couldn't recall what she had been sure about. She left the empty part of the garden then and raced around, grinning ear to ear as she flicked water onto Enishi's neck when he wasn't looking. They ended up playing all day in the sun, and when it set, Enishi made them dinner and Kaoru helped -- though she nearly got kicked out of the kitchen when she burned the pot she was using to boil water. In the evening, she found books in their library, and for a reason she could not explain totally to herself, she asked Enishi to read to her. Wrapped up on the couch beside him, Enishi held her and read to her whatever she wanted him to.

Blissful, happy days passed quickly by Kaoru as she resided in the house by the river. And while the outside trees began to show the deepness of autumn setting in with each golden leaf that fell and the splashes of color all over, the time in the house did not seemed to move either forwards or backwards. One day, Kaoru walked by the hall and passed by the photographs, noting that she was somehow in quite a few of them by now, and not remembering a time when she wasn't a part of the photos. "I don't remember Sister very well," Kaoru scratched her head as she looked at the photograph of Enishi's sister on the wall. "What was she like?" Kaoru asked Enishi that evening as he kissed her forehead tenderly goodnight after he had tucked her in. Surprised by the question, Enishi studied Kaoru's curious expression for a few moments, contemplating how to answer her question. Kaoru had been wondering for some time, but only now did she remember to ask it. Somehow, in this house, she couldn't remember things very well.

"Tomoe was a very shy woman," Enishi said smiling fondly down at Kaoru when he decided that the truth couldn't hurt. There was a great sadness in his eyes when he spoke of Tomoe though, but it was a happy type of sad remembrance, filled with nostalgia. "She wasn't very open to anyone else but me, because I was her little brother. This was before you came, Kaoru," he explained to Kaoru tenderly. "She loved the garden, but one day, she met a man. He charmed her into believing everything he said, but he was a liar, that he was. But Tomoe wouldn't hear one bad word about him, so she kept on meeting him and kept on falling more and more in love with the man. Still, the seasons passed and she brought him into her garden, and he told her there that he was leaving." Enishi wore an angry expression on his face and he gathered Kaoru smaller form into a tight embrace, as if he was afraid she would disappear like his sister. "He promised her that he would bring back to her a branch of red plum, a flower missing in her garden. And she was reluctant-- no, she was totally against him going. But she loved him and so, she let him leave. But the Liar didn't return. He broke his promise and there was no red plum branch or the wedding she was so sure they were having later in the summer that year. The Liar made her cry and stay in her room till days and days went by.

Father tried to talk her out of it but he gave up quickly. I tried to wake her up to the lies that Liar told her, but she would just stare and stare out into the garden, at the garden without the red-plum tree to blossom as he had promised to give her when he returned. And then, one day, she just disappeared from this house. Father went looking up and down the woods for her, calling her name, but Tomoe didn't return his calls. Father went into the nearby villages to look for her, trying to find anyone who had seen her, but no one had. And then, one day, Father didn't return either. I wanted to go look, more than anything, but the days passed one by one and I feared that if I went they might return to this empty house and leave again. I began to convince myself that they would return on their own when they were ready. But no one returned, and nobody came to visit me at this house by the river."

Kaoru clutched her fingers over the fabric of Enishi's shirt. "That was a very sad story," she closed her eyes and snuggled into the warmth of his embrace, not minding how closely he held her to him. "But you have me now, Enishi. And I'll never leave you," she promised with the child-like naivety that she had possessed before Kenshin's departure.

"Mm," Enishi sighed happily. "I have you now, Kaoru, and you'll never leave me." He echoed her words like a promise he held closest to his heart.

So autumn passed outside the house that knew no seasons. Soon, winter did as well, and then spring. When summer came again, Kaoru pricked herself with a needle as she knitted. "It'll be my second birthday with Enishi," she told him excitedly even as he kissed her injured digit worriedly, a half-smile on his lips at her clumsiness. "And Enishi's birthday is also coming soon, sooner actually!" And he smiled at her as she sewed and knitted away, but refused to show him what it was that she was making. "It's a surprise," Kaoru told him as she was shooing him away. After dinner and before bed-time, Enishi would sit by the fireplace and brush Kaoru's long hair. She would tell him stories that she knew not where she had heard from, but always the vague memory of a soothing voice telling it to her echoed in her mind as she spoke each word. The phantom voice comforted her as did the stories. And Kaoru read all the books in the great house that she could lay her hands on, hands that were growing as Kaoru was growing.

Then one day, while she was walking amongst the gardens, a sense of emptiness that always overwhelmed her during these walks, returned as she was looking at the purple irises. But unlike before, when Enishi would come out and guide her back, she wondered more and more deeply into the garden. The sun was shinning and she listened to the trees whisper and the flowers rattle against the breeze. Suddenly, there were songs all over the place, each flower singing a song of its own. Surprised, Kaoru ran into the kitchen, looking for Enishi to ask him how to stop the clamor of strange tunes going against each other in such a chaos that it was hard to make ends meet. Yet, Kaoru paused in the hallway as she always did. She slowed to a stop by the photographs as one particular picture caught her eye this day. Tomoe was smiling and hugging Enishi, and on the woman's head was a wide-brimmed hat and on the hat was a flower Kaoru had not seen in all the time she had stayed at the house.

Kaoru's lips moved to form the shape of the flower's name from her scattered memories. She turned back and ran into the garden once more, searching up and down for the flower and not quite sure why she needed to find it. Until at last Kaoru came to an empty place in the garden where the dirt had always seemed to be freshly turned. And there, she began to cry because a deep, dark pain had silently settled into her chest and then had burst forth upon her unexpectedly. Kaoru's tears fell and soaked the ground and the dirt seemed to melt away as roses shot out from where they had been buried all this time. And Kaoru's eyes caught a hold of the reddest rose and remembered Kenshin's hair, she turned and saw the purple irises and remembered his eyes, and she looked here and there and the garden reminded her of the one she had created with Kenshin together on her roof top for what seemed like a lifetime ago.

Kenshin telling Kaoru that her strength was made her beautiful, Kenshin's warm eyes regarding her in the darkness saying how she was his moonflower in the blackest of nights, Kenshin's voice reading her bedtime stories, it was all coming back in a flood of cherished memories too painful to bare all at once. And the loud clashing of music from each flower in the garden dimmed and Kaoru heard only the sad pounding of her heart, longing for Kenshin.

How long had she stayed at such a place, Kaoru wondered to herself. How much time had she wasted in the warmth of this garden and lingered to ease the sorrow of a man she thought she could heal a little by her fleeting presence. A man Kaoru knew she would have been exactly alike if she had given up on Kenshin forever.

Yet, her regrets stood not a chance against the flood of memories that rushed back to Kaoru. Her eyes filled with tears at each happy memory, cherishing them again in that garden that knew not fall or winter or spring, but only summer, that last moment before wilting, that treasured moment after blossoming...

"Kaoru?" Enishi stood behind her, his gaze coming upon the roses that need not act or speak to have power over both of them. It was a flower dealing with the past, something they shared with this flower. "What happened?"

"Why did you bury the roses, Enishi?" Kaoru asked softly.

"Because," Enishi paused in his hesitation, looking away as he tried to formulate an answer to placate her. She quietly repeated her question again, but he felt the steel in her tone of voice. "They made you cry, Kaoru."

She tensed, obviously angry. "I cried because those memories were the most precious and painful and important things in the world to me! They are my most important treasures." Kaoru turned to him accusingly. "You tried to take them away!"

Enishi was angry now too. "You would have left me by myself. I was lonely before you came! Can you really blame me for wanting to keep you? Can you blame me for wanting you to stay?" He demanded as he glared at her, though his last words was soft, almost an entreaty. He wanted to hurt her as she had hurt him by implying how easily she could leave him, how much more she loved someone who had left her behind just as easily. "He left you, Kaoru! _I_ will never leave you."

Something flashed in her dark eyes as his last promise settled in the silence between them. "Enishi," she said in a firm but gentle tone. Her breath whooshed out of her half a sigh and half a gasp. Slowly she turned back to the flowers. "Don't make such promises that you cannot keep."

"I mean it." He answered, angry that she doubted him.

"I didn't say you didn't mean it," Kaoru answered evenly. Her young and upturned face remained distant and undisturbed. "Many important people made promises like that to me because they wanted me to be happy, because they doubted me and thought I would be hurt by the utterance of truth. All I selfishly wanted from them was that they would keep such promises to me, more and more, no matter what it took.

"But, Enishi, no one I know has ever been able to keep that promise to me or even to himself. No matter who made it or how much they meant it when it was made, someone always ends up being left behind. Someone always ends up being disappointed and hurt and lied to. Not even Kenshin was able to..." Kaoru added softly.

"I am not Kenshin," Enishi cut in.

"Which are the very reasons why you shouldn't waste such a promise on me," Kaoru answered. Kaoru smiled weakly at the flowers, so that Enishi was unable to study her grief. He could not see her watery smile, but the tremble in her voice gave her away. "I think, I remember a story like this. A boy had found a treasure one day and buried it in the sand, thinking he could keep it forever. He did not want the wind to touch it or the sea to carry it away," she spoke quietly as she wiped away her falling tears. "Yet, he forgot that against the wind and the waves, sand is nothing. Sand is easy to blow away. Sand is easy to wash away, too. The treasure will remember the sky and the world once more, given time.

"So when the boy wasn't looking, the wind and the water eroded away the sand that covered that treasure and revealed it to the open skies for all to see. Did you know what the treasure turned out to be, the thing that the boy cherished above all others?" Enishi did not speak and she waited in the silence for his reply. Finally, he told her that he did not know.

Kaoru was silent for a bit longer, before she spoke again. "I can't take her place, Enishi. I am not Older Sister Tomoe, and I do not wish to be a host for memories. I just want the boy who buried _my_ most important treasurer to know that memories are not meant to be laid to rest beneath anything. Memories are my most important treasure in the sand, and I won't let you take it away from me. I won't forgive you if you do, not even you, Enishi." Kaoru told him as she turned to him at last.

"Are you going to leave me as well now, Kaoru?" he asked her quietly. Kaoru heard him, heard the soft tremble in his tone and saw the fear in his eyes.

Kaoru thought she should have been angry with him. But, all she could feel was relief. She had gotten her memories back, the spell was broken. It was all she had ever really wanted. Her cherished memories, she didn't want to give them to anyone or bury them anywhere. Even if it was painful, she wanted to carry these photographs inside of her, keeping it with her always. "Enishi," Kaoru turned to him with a bright smile on her face. "Aren't you going to go look for your sister? I think, somewhere out there, in the world outside, she's waiting for you. Maybe she can't find her way back to this house." Her grin widened at the surprised look on Enishi's face. "I know I would want to see Enishi again, no matter what, if I was Enishi's sister. No matter how long it took, I would look for Enishi." Kaoru looked past the fence that enclosed them in their garden sanctuary. "Isn't it time for Enishi to look for Older Sister Tomoe, as well?"

Enishi's shock slowly began to melt away. "Aa," he answered after a long period of silence. The corner of his lips began an upward climb, a small, secretive smile that Kaoru had never seen him express. He looked like a little boy finding himself after being lost in the woods. Kenshin had that look once when they had gotten lost in the forest, it had gotten dark and they couldn't see their way back. She remembered that exact expression on his face when they had seen the lights of the village, and she had felt that answering warmth of relief in her heart to reflect Kenshin's own feelings. "It's long past time."

"I believe you'll find her, Enishi," Kaoru answered confidently. "I believe she's been waiting for you for a long, long time."

**-----**

Kaoru ran. She leapt gracefully over the even picket fence and followed a path she had not noticed before in her weariness a year ago, hearing Enishi's worried shouts after her as she laughed in the wind. Kaoru saw that her little raft was gone and with a weary grin, she headed down the road.

After quite a bit of exertion and running, Kaoru slowed at last as she saw that it was late autumn again and her birthday was coming quickly upon her. She would be fourteen now and this would be the second birthday without Kenshin if she didn't find him soon. Kaoru's blue eyes took in her surroundings and noted that a storm had passed. The soreness of her bare and sandaled feet distracted her (since winter had not existed for neither Enishi nor herself).

Kaoru began to take note of the dead leaves that littered the forest floor, the golden color that was turning to brown on the trees overheard and the bare branches every which way she looked. Kaoru only then began to notice how ugly the world suddenly seemed and a part of her whispered for her to return to the summer house she left behind. It was so completely different from Enishi's garden where the sun was always warm and the flowers had always bloomed that Kaoru looked this way and that, but all she saw was dead or dying things while the bit of sky she could see overhead was grey and unkind.

The world was also getting colder and colder and Kaoru knew she was lost and hungry. She walked and walked, until at last, she sat down on a rock in the forest to rest her weary body. Kaoru felt like crying again at how helpless and lost she felt, she knew she wanted to find Kenshin desperately but Kaoru hadn't a clue in her head how she was going to go about it. And it's been a year, an entire year that she had been out of the loop as the world went on without her. Almost two years without Kenshin, and yet it still felt like he had left just yesterday. Kaoru wasn't sure if Kenshin would be so happy to see her now, wherever he was. He had been so cold when they had parted.

Thinking such depressed thoughts, Kaoru drifted off to an uneasy sleep as she leaned against the trunk of the wet tree next to the rock. After a year of forgetting why she left home, Kaoru dreamt of Kenshin once more. This time, Kenshin seemed even more distant than before with his lips as blue as a robin's egg and his once golden skin now as pale as snow. Ice chips decorated his darkened hair and his countenance spoke of a hopeless anguish. And though he didn't look much older, Kaoru felt in her heart he had aged more than she could have ever imagined. In her dream, both his eyes were now cold and glittering in the colors of amber. And while his eyes bore down on her like two rocks of a tiger's eyes, there was only the abysmal feeling conveyed of a man who had lost sight of sunlight. In those eyes, Kaoru saw silent suffering that was iced over with listlessness and despair.

Dread and urgency pulled at Kaoru in every which way. She shouted and cried after him, but Kenshin would not listen. She brushed her warm fingers over his freezing hands as she chased hopelessly after him, but he looked disgustedly at her face and her attempts as his figure grew out of reach and further away. "You're warm," Kenshin told Kaoru coolly as he had done but a year ago. "I don't like you, Caw-ru! Caw! Caw!"

"Kenshin!" she answered frantically. And then Kaoru woke with a sudden sense of intense hurt, dread and utter confusion as she left the world of dreams behind her.

* * *

_**To be continued…**_


	4. Into the Palace of Dreams and Healing

**In Our Garden of Snow and Roses**

_"Between the conception,_

_And the creation,_

_Between the emotion,_

_And the response,_

_Falls the Shadow."_

- _T. S. Eliot_

(_The Hollow Men_)

_**

* * *

**_

**_Into the Palace of Dreams and Healing_**

_Whoso regardeth dreams is like him that catcheth_

_at a shadow, and followeth after the wind._

_Apocrypha_

(_Ecclesiasticus 34:2_)

Kaoru was startled into wakefulness to find that a raven had landed on her lap and was currently cawing at her. It looked at her and she looked at it. "Hello?" she greeted it hesitantly.

"Hey, Hag," the raven replied. "You're finally awake, I see. It sure took you awhile to wake up too. Are you deaf when it comes to sleeping, because I think that log you're sitting on woke up before you did! I've been watching you careen around like a headless chicken too. Do you need help or what? Humans," the raven sighed deeply, "so very helpless in the woods on your own, it seems. No survival instincts whatsoever!"

Kaoru fumed as she glared down at the sarcastic raven. "And what do _you_ want with a headless chicken with no survival instincts like myself?" Kaoru demanded with equal sarcasm.

The raven hopped out of Kaoru's reach, perhaps sensing the fact that she was considering on cooking the bird for dinner. Kaoru wasn't one who liked to eat animals very much, not when she spent most of her time healing them, but for this raven she just might make an exception. "Well, don't you humans ever listen? I asked you if you needed my help, Hag!"

"I have a name you know, Curmudgeon?" Kaoru demanded. "And it is not _Hag_."

"If you didn't want to be called that, Stupid, then you should have told me right away." The raven replied nonchalantly. Not really understanding what a curmudgeon was but having a feeling that it wasn't very nice. The raven decided to ignore the whole thing instead, so he wouldn't appear too ignorant.

_A nice, hot fire to roast this bird over would be nice_, Kaoru mused. "It's not Stupid, either. It's Ka-o-ru, Raven, and you're one very rude bird!"

"I have a name too, Stupid," the Raven answered with a harsh "Caw!" as he hoped impatiently in front of Kaoru. "It's Yahiko, so get it right."

"That's a big name for a small bird," Kaoru teased as she looked down her nose at the raven. At that very moment, Kaoru was going over a list of recipes that Enishi had taught her and wondered which one best went with raven. The chicken wing recipe was very delicious when she made it with Enishi...

"I'm not small, Stupid!" The raven became riled and flapped its wings. "So want my help or what?" the raven's voice became gruff, almost as if he was embarrassed. "Because if you don't, then I don't want to stick around here any longer!"

Kaoru went over her options and finally she came to a helpless conclusion: She needed the help of this sarcastic raven that called himself Yahiko. So she reluctantly agreed, "I'm looking for someone very important to me," Kaoru began hesitantly. "He's very clever and was going to university when he disappeared." And from there, Kaoru told her story to Yahiko who was strangely quiet and respectful as he listened to her tale.

"I might know the one you speak of," Yahiko said thoughtfully when Kaoru was finished.

Surprised beyond belief, Kaoru clasped her hands together hopefully, her breath caught in her throat. "Do you mean it? Do you really mean it."

"I do," Yahiko began but Kaoru caught him in her arms and nearly hugged the poor raven to death, though Kaoru did cross him off her dinner list. "Stop it, Stupid! Do you want to kill the messenger?" Yahiko protested, though the derogatory comment didn't work out so well when he couldn't get two breaths into his crushed lungs. But at his words, Kaoru dropped him like a sac of potatoes.

"I'm sorry," Kaoru apologized profusely. Kaoru didn't want to kill the raven after all, though a slow ire that she had felt earlier towards the bird began to rise again, inside of her. "But still, you could use some manners," Kaoru commented innocently enough.

"Humans," Yahiko groused quite grumpily, totally ignoring Kaoru's earlier comment about his manners. Kaoru grinned, slowly realizing that Yahiko may not be as sarcastic and uncaring as he seemed. The raven really was the first to offer her help on her search for Kenshin in the wide-world. He was rough around the edges, but that was okay with Kaoru since she wasn't so fussy about things like that.

"Where have you seen my Kenshin?" Kaoru asked timidly after Yahiko smoothed his ruffled feathers.

Yahiko flapped a bit startled but then he began his tale. "Down this pathway and over the hills, there's a large, modern clinic between the edge of a small town and the forest. There, a Fox Doctor resides within her pristine, white building as the head of the faculty. The Fox Doctor is very shrewd and very smart. She knows everything about everything, and she has read all the literary articles and books in the world. She discusses politics with her patience, even, and tells stories to the sick children that stay overnight. Even the animals go to her for help, the deer with the broken leg, the squirrel with the trampled tail, or even the wild cat with the splinter in its paw. They all go trustingly to her doorsteps to ask for help when needed. The people love her and give her tribute and the clinic grows more lavishing each years, for she says that any who seeks her help will receive it and so her abode must accommodate the sick no matter who they are."

Yahiko directed Kaoru as he told her of the clinic by the edge of the woods with him on her shoulder as the guide. "You see, the Fox Doctor is part of a lineage of renowned doctors, but all the people in the village boast that she truly has the touch of a Saint. Yet, in a nearby city, a Lord heard of our Fox Doctor, as all words pass around. And he came in the disguise of business, asking all sorts of strange questions and demanding to know if our Fox Doctor knew chemistry and if she produced all her medicine with her own hands. This greatly puzzled the Fox Doctor, but she was learned in all ways as the rumors claimed and answered each question with such astounding ease that it was not long that she noticed the sly and devious nature of her questioner and him, her brilliance. It had turned out that the Lord was a dealer of illegal substances in the city and wanting to build and enlarge his criminal underworld, he had embarked to replace the drug-maker he had previously hired and then fired, literally. The Fox Doctor, unwilling to do such horrid things ran into her clinic and hid, for the clinic is enchanted, you see. All who steps into the place will be rendered speechless by the grandeur and weakened in action. Only the truly strong of heart and spirit may walk through the halls without being affected. Knowing this the Lord waited seven days and seven nights outside the clinic and when the Fox Doctor found no hope of getting rid of him, she despaired." Kaoru gasped and felt a deep sympathy for the woman and anger as well, for she herself would be outraged if her beloved Kamiya Kasshin Ryuu was practiced ill as the poor Fox Doctor's practice was threatened with in this tale.

"Suddenly, on the first day of Spring and the morning that marked the eighth day of the Lord's blockade of the Fox Doctor, a young man came rumbling down the road." The raven perked up in the dreary tale then, "A smart aleck of a man, all broad shoulders and bronze skinned. His fists were ready and his swagger did not show his lack of confidence, for this ruffian had heard of the Lord's wicked ways and came for a good fight. He had no care for whether or not the proud Fox Doctor would be gratefully accept his help, he just despised seeing injustice in the world and despised the weaknesses of bullies the more. He was very strong and took down the guards that watched over the clinic one by one as if he was knocking down twigs in the forest. He bravely went straight for that Lord and fought him one on one. It was not much of a contest of strength, and this ruffian easily won against the Lord right after taking out all of the Lord's body-guards.

"The Lord begged him to join him, promising the ruffian money, women, and whatever else the ruffian may desire. The ruffian paused at this, but laughed off the offers when he declared that "Men like you really make me sick!" and promptly disposed of the Lord in his violent ways.

"The ruffian, who didn't look like much in the beginning, turned out to be surprisingly strong where others that the Fox Doctor had helped had quivered in fear and abandoned her to her fate. He wasn't intimidated by anything at all, it seemed, and took whatever injuries he received without a care. After the fight, he went strolling into the clinic without a quiver or even an expression of awe on his face at the grandeur all around him. And so, the Fox Doctor healed him back to health and he's been staying with her ever since that day."

"Kenshin disappeared the first day of Spring over a year ago as well," Kaoru pondered a bit but she was too hopeful and excited to linger on it too much. "He's brave and strong and sturdier than most people would think if they first glimpsed upon him. Kenshin would never let a bully terrorize the weak and get away with it, and he sees things so clearly that nothing can enchant him if he does not wish to be enchanted!" Kaoru nodded as she found herself out of the forest and at the steps of a large, pristinely white building that was far larger than she would have imagined a clinic to be.

"_It's as big as a palace!_" Kaoru thought in awe as she viewed the clinic before her with her mouth slightly hung open in shock.

"I'll have to go talk with my sweetheart," Yahiko told her. "She's a tamed raven that lives with the Fox Doctor. The lady doctor saved her life last winter from the cold and a broken wing."

Surprised, Kaoru couldn't help but tease. "A girlfriend raven?" Kaoru asked with a sly and knowing smile.

If ravens could blush, Yahiko would have been doing it. "Sh-shut up, Hag!" he spluttered.

Kaoru only giggled, waving Yahiko off as he leapt off high into the air. Kaoru sighed a bit enviously as she watched Yahiko fly higher and higher into the sky. If Kaoru possessed such a power, she would have long flown all over the world to look for Kenshin. Still, Kaoru only had arms and legs but not wings. Smiling ruefully to herself, Kaoru sat down on the steps, finding herself weary and hungry beyond belief. Yawning, she glanced up at the dark grey skies overhead and pondered how Kenshin was doing, where he was at, and if he was taking care of himself. Whenever she thought about Kenshin, she could not help but be slightly worried. A very bad feeling always seemed to settle at the bottom of her stomach for one reason or another. Kaoru had trouble remembering her own dreams in detail, but she knew it couldn't have been good if she was feeling the after affects like this still.

No, it couldn't have been good at all. But if this "ruffian" was Kenshin, then perhaps, she didn't have too much to worry about. Maybe Kenshin had just forgotten where he had come from and all she had to do was help him remember...

Maybe…

* * *

The clouds passed overhead and so did the grayness of the sky until the meager light of the sun showed the closing of another day. Kaoru didn't know how long she had sat on the steps of the clinic that loomed behind her like a giant cathedral that Kaoru had only read of in books or from Kenshin's story-telling. Kaoru sighed wastefully, falling into a trance between sleep and waking. Time passed and her stomach grumbled in protest as she fell in and out of a doze on the white steps that gleamed even in the darkness, until a soft but firm touch on her shoulder startled her awake. With an exclamation in surprise on her lips and dazed confusion in her eyes, Kaoru leapt from her spot and twisted around so quickly she nearly fell down the few steps she had climbed to settle where she had sat. 

"Oh," the voice started and there was a breeze on Kaoru's face as Kaoru's startled blue eyes settled on the fluttering raven that landed gracefully onto the steps before her. "I- I'm so sorry to startle you!" The shy, feminine voice came from the raven as Yahiko landed next to the other.

"Watch it, Hag," Yahiko commanded. "You could have harmed Tsubame Chan for being so clumsy!"

Kaoru shook her dazed head a bit before apologizing to the shy raven who hopped behind Yahiko to peer at Kaoru curiously from a safer distance. After quite a few reassurances from Yahiko and Kaoru, Tsubame finally flew and tentatively landed on Kaoru's shoulder again. Finally, when Tsubame settled with a nod, she began to explain herself. "Yahiko told me of your story, and it's very moving that you went this far to search for your dearest friend." Tsubame's every emotion was in her voice, and her admiration of Kaoru's actions made the latter blush in embarrassment. "It's very brave what you're doing, venturing out into the unknown for your precious someone like that. I don't know if I'll ever find the courage for that, but if I lost Yahiko then I would wish with all my might to be able to do what you have done." Tsubame ruffled her feather a bit and lowered her voice as if she had no desire to confess such feelings. Such was the tamed raven's shyness.

Kaoru found the contrast between bold and brash Yahiko and his shy and timid Tsubame to be a truly amusing sight. Kaoru hid her smile and only nodded at the tamed raven, Tsubame. "It's very nice to meet you, Tsubame." Kaoru greeted with a welcoming smile, "I've heard a lot about you from Yahiko," Kaoru teased and Tsubame fluttered in a panic of stuttered quandary while Yahiko squawked in surprise, seemingly furiously switching between reassuring Tsubame of his feelings for her and berating Kaoru for her statement. Kaoru giggled at this, feeling truly light hearted by the young couple before her. "I'm just teasing," Kaoru reassured both of them. "But thank you both," Kaoru said with honesty and gratitude in her voice, "for understanding."

Tsubame fluttered on more to land next to Yahiko. "You were right to trust her, Yahiko," Tsubame seemed to smile at the suddenly flustered Yahiko. "If this is the girl who wishes to see if her dearest is the man who came that first spring day, but a year ago, I will gladly lend her aid."

Kaoru gasped with a grateful smile pulling her lips into a wide grin as her eyes misted with bliss. "Thank you for this," Kaoru said through a constricted throat and passed her trembling hands. "Thank you very much!" The human girl tempered her excitement so to hug both ravens with gentle care, and the Tsubame turned and directed her to a secret door on the side of the clinic.

Feeling a bit guilty for sneaking in at such an hour, Kaoru could not help but murmur questions at her guides. But they quieted her fears with reassurances every time she asked, even Yahiko tried his best to calm Kaoru out of whatever notion she had about trespassing and such. The deeper they went the more awed Kaoru felt. The walls stretched high overhead, as if the place was made for giants. And though the plush carpeting dulled the sound of her footsteps, the walls still gleamed with a light of their own in the dark. Speechless as they ventured deeper into the clinic, they finally reached a hall where the shadows danced and sung and the sound of forest trees rattling, rustled through the hall. Everywhere Kaoru turned, she would think she saw the shadow of a fox's tail or ear or slender shape disappear, as if playing hide and seek. Still they venture further in, until finally, with a pounding heart, they reached a chamber where two large beds were suspended so, that they seemed to float in midair.

The floor was frosted glass where fishes swam and water ran like a world under ice beneath Kaoru's feet. Crystals adorned the walls that seemed to shift alive all around them from color to color and the ceiling seemed opened to the skies above, reaching forever into the heavens. Kaoru blinked her rounded eyes at everything. Her hands were over her mouth that would not shut as her gaze fell from one wonder to the next and back again. "He sleeps," Tsubame hopped onto her shoulder and nudged her cheek with a soft, feathered head. "There, in the bed of red fur, he sleeps."

And Kaoru turned to the two beds, one feathered and white as snow, while the other was furred and red. Creeping over the glass floor, Kaoru felt like grimacing as her dirtied feet left a trail over the clear glass until she reached the suspended beds. Kaoru stood on tiptoes as she gently pulled back the crimson pelts of fur. The first sight she saw was the bronze neck that she remembered so well, swelling under the covers as the owner's head was buried in a pillow. Kaoru cried out in joy and recognition of the slope of that neck she was all too familiar with. "Kenshin! Kenshin! You're here and well!"

The man in the bed of fur stirred immediately and rose in alarm at Kaoru's cries of joy. Kaoru stumbled back as the bed rocked at the motions and she fell to see the dashing man who saved the clinic jump out of bed and tower over her. "What's going on?" The devilish looking man demanded sleepily, rubbing his eyes as he tried to clear his vision.

"Y-you're not Kenshin," Kaoru finally murmured as the reality of it came crashing down, along with her hopes. Tears pooled at the ends of Kaoru's eyes as another stirred from within the white, feathered bed. A beautiful woman emerged from the long white feathers and Tsubame went to her mistress, explaining everything while Kaoru sat helplessly on the frosted floor, surrounded by beauty but unable to enjoy it through her tears. The woman assured the ravens that neither she nor the devilish young man were mad at them for what they did and praised them for their kindness before sending both to bed.

"That's right sad," the man commented with his hands on his hips after the departure of the reluctant ravens. "But Little Missy, your tears won't bring him back." Kaoru blinked and rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, sniffling. The beautiful woman was helped down by the dashing young man from her bed feathers. "My name is Sanosuke, though you may call me Sano. This here's my foxy lady, Megumi."

Megumi rolled her eyes at the introduction, "Yes, here's my rooster of a fiancé," the older woman agreed with a flip her long, silken hair over one shoulder. The woman then approached Kaoru, helping her to her feet. "You poor dear," Megumi sighed. "But Sano's right, you know?" The woman smiled, "Crying never helped anyone retrieve anything. And if you wish to find your friend, you must be strong and believe in him, that he'll be waiting for you wherever he is and that he'll be glad to see you when your journey is through." Megumi produced a handkerchief and dabbed away the tears that still fell from Kaoru's wide-eyed stare. "Oh, don't look so surprised," the lady doctor smiled kindly at their unexpected guest, "it's true you know? Faith takes a lot of strength to hold on to, but if you do hold onto it tightly, it'll see you through the toughest days of your life."

"Little Missy, you must also believe in yourself." Sanosuke added as he petted the top of her ruffled hair. "You must believe that you'll find him, no matter where he is. You've gotten this far, haven't you?" Kaoru nodded reluctantly, "So you know by now that you have what it takes to go the distance to finding this Kenshin." Sanosuke smiled and guided Kaoru closer to his red fur bed. "You must be very tired now, so you can sleep in my bed tonight." Megumi snorted from behind him, sounding a bit indigent. "Without me in it of course," Sanosuke quickly added with a boyish grin. "Though, I know you'll miss the company." That last comment earned Sanosuke a good slap on the back of his head, but he just grinned at his attacker and lifted Kaoru up into the bed of pelts. "We'll talk more on the business of finding your friend tomorrow when you're well rested." He advised when Kaoru began to protest. "But, your friend is very lucky to have someone like you looking for him. In this world, to find that someone who believes in you the most, that is a difficult task. Your friend is very lucky to have you because of that."

Reluctant but smiling and blushing at the compliment, Kaoru gave in to rest. Still, before she went to sleep, Kaoru noticed the absence of the dancing shadows that had guided her to this room. "Where did the shadows go?" Kaoru inquired. "They were so very pretty when I was coming here. They guided me, the fox in the shadows of the forest."

Megumi blinked surprised at this and she and Sanosuke shared a look that only they understood. "They're the silhouettes of our dreams," Megumi finally answered Kaoru's question. "When you dream here, they are projected over the clinic. People with warm hearts have the most beautiful dreams and the most beautiful shadow plays." The older woman sighed with a rueful smile. "Such displays bring peace and joys to those who have suffered and give those who have lost hope a glance of the beauty they had forgotten," Megumi explained. The couple though, soon ushered the tired Kaoru to bed so that she may rest.

Kaoru thanked the two once more before she tucked herself deep into the red furs, thinking just as she was about to fall asleep that it was just a shade bright of Kenshin's hair. She silently wished that he was there to meet the wonderful people in this clinic so he too may be reminded of the magic and the beauty of dreams and hopes. And then, the shadows of her dreams came like reflections of sunlight shining from the walls of the room. The light illuminated the glass floors and the waters below it with all the love and longing that Kaoru held in her heart for Kenshin. Both Sanosuke and Megumi held each other, in awe at the sight, and listened in quiet at the whispered laughter shared between the shadowed forms of one small girl-child and one protective young-man. "I've never seen this place light up with so many emotions of joy and love and memories." Megumi commented with a skeptical eye, but unable to keep the wonder out of her own voice.

Sanosuke held her close with a large grin on his face. "I knew that the Little Missy was special," he told his betrothed.

"Let's help her," Megumi agreed with firm belief. "For such a love to exist in the world, this is the seed from which the most beautiful of stories grows from." With this in mind, the couple went back to bed in preparation for the long day to come.

* * *

The morning passed and Kaoru slept on. She dreamt of her childhood with Kenshin, their springs together in the forest, their summers together by the river, their autumns together in the mountains, and their winters together by the fire place. Kaoru dreamt of Enishi, smiling beside his sister Tomoe, reuniting with her after all these long years. Kaoru dreamt of reuniting Kenshin's wakazashi with his missing sheath that she still carried with her. It was at the click of the weapon's completion that Kaoru woke to the bright, sunlit afternoon. Yawning and stretching beneath the blue skies, Kaoru rose out of the red, fur bed and tumbled onto the frosted floor when she tried to get out of the suspended bed on her own. She swayed to her unsteady feet and her stomach grumbled at her menacingly. 

"Oh, you're awake," an attendant appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared again. Kaoru was left blinking with surprise and uncertainty after the little man. Soon, attendants piled in bringing trays of food, which Kaoru ate vigorously whatever was placed before her. She was too hungry to be shy having not eaten at all since the day she left Enishi's house by the river. After she was done, an entourage of attendants came to retrieve the plates while others came for Kaoru's measurements and more attendants came to lead her to the bathing section of the clinic once her measurements were taken. Kaoru followed with dazed surprise, allowing herself to be stripped and scrubbed by two cheerful women that nearly drowned Kaoru twice in the bath-tub when they dunked her to rinse her long, long hair.

Refreshed and out of the bath, Kaoru was dressed in the finest clothes she had ever set eyes on. The clothes seemed outdated, but Kaoru felt like a pampered princess, especially after having soft and silky slippers put onto her bandaged feet, sore and scrapped up from the track through the woods. Unused to this type of living, Kaoru twirled this way and that, surprised by the image of herself in the mirror. In all her years, Kaoru never saw herself look as much like a lady until that moment, and she wondered what Kenshin would have said if he saw her like this.

Seeing the slow changes in her growing body, Kaoru wondered how Kenshin must have changed as well. Her face lit up, sure that her childhood friend had only grown more beautiful and more handsome than the last time she's seen him. Kenshin must look like a real-life prince, or princess! Kaoru thought teasingly of all the times in their childhood together, when the adults had mistaken Kenshin for her sister and Kaoru for his brother. Grinning at what once had infuriated her, Kaoru put her hands on her hips and really looked at herself in the mirror before shaking her head at her image. "It's not me at all," she conceded, but knew it would be rude to remark such a thing on her generous hosts.

Led out of the dressing place, she arrived at the head office where the name Takani Megumi was in nice gold letters on the frosted glass of the wooden door. The attendants led her in and she blinked at the well furnished office that was large and spacious. Each wall held books that Kaoru could not help but step towards in utter curiosity and excitement. "You like books?" Megumi asked from her place behind the oak desk, seated in her black, leather chair.

Kaoru glanced at her host with a sparkle in her eyes and nodded eagerly. "Kenshin read to me before I knew what books and words were, and I guess, I have loved it ever since." Kaoru answered with a sheepish grin.

"So, your friend's name is Kenshin?" Megumi asked as she rose out of her chair and walked to stand next to the bookshelf. "I have many books here, from all over the world. My favorites are in this room. There is a library in this clinic that I have held for any who wish to read and educate themselves on the events of the world. The latest newspapers and magazines, the newest published books, I collect them all to keep up with the times." Megumi explained.

Kaoru glanced this way and that around the office, trying to understand where Megumi was going with the conversation. "I don't see any modern things here."

Megumi smiled at Kaoru's observation. "I have been taught since childhood to love old things," Megumi explained. "But I discovered, early on in life, how important it is to keep up with the present. But here, I store the things I love, and I am one who loves old fashioned stories of chivalry."

"Is that what drew you to Mister Sano?" Kaoru asked with wide-eyed innocence.

Megumi laughed, surprised by this. "That Rooster of mine?" The older woman smiled ruefully as she ran one finger down the spine of a well kept book. "I guess you heard of my story already," Megumi grinned. "Maybe it is," Megumi speculated.

"That's very brave, what you did!" Kaoru suddenly exclaimed, with conviction in her eyes. "Not giving into the intimidations of that evil Lord was very brave of you," Kaoru added when she saw the inquiry in Megumi's expression.

Megumi shook her head. "I hid in this palace of a clinic of mine. That wasn't brave at all. Sano was the one who saved me from the Lord. He was the brave one of the two of us." Megumi sighed in resignation to herself as the older woman walked to the window. "I thought I was so independent too, and then the first adversity I meet I found myself forced to lock my doors to the world. No, little Kaoru, I was not brave at all."

"Oh no, Miss Megumi," Kaoru interjected, surprising her hostess. "You held out and knew you hadn't the strength to face that Lord on your own, but instead of giving in because of fear like everyone else did, you held your ground!" Kaoru grinned at the surprised expression on Megumi's face. "Kenshin once told me that there was a very brave king who ruled a beautiful kingdom, but when his enemies came to attack him, he closed off the doors of the town. His enemies taunted him from outside the walls, calling him a coward, and the people inside urged him to fight, pledging their lives to die if they must to stop the king's enemies. For his people loved him so very much you see? That they did." Kaoru had a far off look on her face as she remembered the story and Kenshin's voice echoing throughout her.

Megumi turned her eyes then and found that she could not help but be captivated by the girl who seemed to glow with a love for the boy of her childhood years. "But the king also loved his men, and he knew his strength and his weaknesses. And his enemies besieged him from outside and his people urged him from within, yet still he would not budge. He said to his people, so long as these walls will hold and I can stand, I will protect what is inside, because my people are more important to me than my pride, and no amount of taunting from the enemy would make me even allow one man to die in my name. Thus the king understood that his name was not worth killing or dying for, not even one life of the people he loved so dearly as well. Instead, he waited until his armies returned from the distractions sent to break the king's defenses, and they defeated his enemies. Not one man or woman or child inside the walls of the king's keep died in that battle."

"I am no king," Megumi smiled ruefully. "I was protecting no one but myself."

Kaoru walked over to the older woman and clasped the other's hand in her own. "Your presence here helps the poor who cannot heal themselves. You aid the animals too! You teach those who cannot otherwise learn to read or write how to do such things so they have a chance to rise out of their stations. What you do here is like what the king does for his people, to prepare them for and to protect them from, the world outside his walls. When the hungry comes to your doorstep, you offer them food. When the tired comes to this place, you give them shelter and a place to sleep. And when the wounded comes to you, you heal them without discrimination or question." Kaoru tightened her grasp on Megumi's limp hands, "When I came, you gave me hope and faith in what I was so close to giving up. Miss Megumi, what you do is not just to protect, as the kings of old, but you mend those who are broken and that is just as important and just as noble as any king can lay claim to. And for that and all that you have done for me, I thank you from the bottom of my heart."

Megumi smiled at the open and honest expression of her young charge and hugged the girl close. "It is I who should thank you, little one."

"Now, why won't you listen to me when I told you such things before?" Sanosuke's voice broke them apart, but Megumi laughed and wiped away a tear. "H-hey, were you crying?" Sanosuke asked in a startled panic.

"Idiot," Megumi scolded him with a good slap on the head. Kaoru smiled at the couple contentedly, wishing Kenshin and she would be able to share such a moment together, someday.

"So what are you going to do now?" Sanosuke asked Kaoru as Megumi was dragged to sit in a huff on his lap.

"If you would be so kind, I would like to set out as soon as possible to look for Kenshin." Kaoru smiled at them gratefully as she explained her plan to travel wherever the wind would lead her to find her childhood friend.

"Winter is setting in," Megumi commented. "So you'll need a nice jacket and traveling clothes as well. We'll get everything ready for you in an hour's time." Megumi nodded as she glanced at her elegant wrist-watch. "And then we'll send you on your way," Megumi's face became very professional then and she got off her betrothed lap easily as she went off to do her tasks. There was only the hint of pink on the head-doctor's face to suggest that the position Megumi was subjected to before had caused her quite a bit of embarrassment.

"That woman's like a well oiled machine," Sanosuke sighed contently and grinned at Kaoru. "So, do you have a favorite story? I'd love to hear it!"

True to Megumi's words, in an hour's time Kaoru found herself with a new backpack made for traveling and clothes to travel in as well as money and food. She tried to refuse but Megumi was determined and so was Sanosuke and it wasn't long before Kaoru caved in to their combined logic and stubbornness. Usually, Kaoru would have fought to the very end, but she suspected that Megumi cheated by bringing Kaoru to the most intimidating room in the entire clinic, the reception place. So as she left the steps, she found a car waiting for her with the friendly driver in front. "Oh?" Kaoru asked surprised.

"He'll take you wherever you need to go," Megumi reassured her with a grin. "His from the town actually, but had been wanting to see the world and seeing this as a chance to help out a stranger as well, Mister Seta Soujirou was more than willing to give aid. We have nothing to do with his decision." And Kaoru found whatever arguments she might have had with Megumi cut off at the legs.

Pouting rebelliously, she sent a glare up at the grinning couple. "Oh! You two are just so sneaky!" Kaoru threw up her hands in exasperation and stomped to the car. She let herself go into the car and came face to face with a very friendly looking young man. He rolled down the windows for her so she could say goodbye to her new friends. The ravens appeared then, the tame Tsubame fluttered to her and Kaoru thanked her profusely.

"We're sorry to be so late," gasped the winded raven. "We've overslept this day," Tsubame ducked her head shyly. "But it was very nice meeting you!" The raven shouted after her as the car got started.

Yahiko flew beside her for some ways down the road, "Good luck," he said reluctantly as they paused at a stop sign. "And take care of yourself."

Kaoru smiled at him with all the gratitude in her heart on her face. "Thank you and farewell!" she waved goodbye him. "For such a small bird, you have a big heart." she teased him one last time. That was the way Kaoru remembered seeing Yahiko last, sputtering protests about his size and too flustered to give her a final farewell. To Kaoru, she would always remember the proud young raven that way, kind and gruff and with a heart as large as any man's. And as Kaoru and her driver zoomed far into the distant horizon, Yahiko stood beneath the winter sun and watch the little white car disappear like a speck of snow flake that melted into the blue sky. His black wings gleamed under the sunlight and Yahiko thought to himself that he would always remember Kaoru with a grin on her face and a strength that refused to give out in her own compassionate heart, one that would surprise even the strongest man in the world.

That was how he remembered her.

* * *

_**to be continued...**_  



	5. The Little Ninja Girl

**In Our Garden of Snow and Roses**

_"Between the conception,_

_And the creation,_

_Between the emotion,_

_And the response,_

_Falls the Shadow."_

- _T. S. Eliot_

(_The Hollow Men_)

* * *

_**The Little Ninja Girl**_

_Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the_

_small, it enkindles the great._

_- Comte de Bussy-Rabutin_

(_Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules_)

The forest they entered was lush and green. The little white car rumbled down the walk steadily until night darkened the path before them and evening settled in merrily. Seta Soujirou rambled on about his life for much of the journey while Kaoru dozed in the backseat. Her amiable driver chattered on and on about the town he used to live in and the people he knew. Kaoru learned about the morning milking and the song of the autumn festival; she learned how the church bell sounded in the afternoon, signaling the end of the working day; there was the interesting tidbit about the distinctive rattling that always sprouted forth from the throat of Old Man Moony as he laid snoring on his porch in the daylight hours only to get up during the night to watch the graveyard. Kaoru even learned about the local girl that the young man liked to have asked to the dance of the Winter Solstice if he had been around for that. So time went as the luxurious car that Megumi and Sanosuke bestowed upon Kaoru, with all the well-wishes they could give her, rumbled its way back once more into the real world.

The moon was a half smile in the sky when the two of them stopped at a warm and merry looking inn by the side of the dark road they traveled. The old bulb-light on the front porch flickered like a small flame, dimming and then brightening in an incessant pattern of dancing shadows. The muted boisterous music crept from beneath the door of the inn and filled the quiet woods with echoing sounds of human warmth and company, a strange and startling contrast to the unnaturally quiet surroundings.

Kaoru stepped out of the car with a grateful smile at Soujirou, who held her door opened for her in a very gentlemanly manner. His smile seemed more natural now than the one she had seen reflecting back at her from the rearview mirror, earlier. A hint of shy pink graced his cheeks when their eyes met awkwardly over the top of the car door for the first time after hours of being together, but not face to face, and they stumbled a bit on who was to lead the way as their breath misted the cold, night air.

The woods seemed dark and strangely ominous to Kaoru's eyes as she glanced curiously behind her to the other side of the dirt road Soujirou ended up leading the way up to the inn so he did not take note of her uneasiness. The densely populated trees somehow lacked the familiarity of the forest she grew up next to and the atmosphere itself seemed strangely forbidding when just a few hours ago the forest had seemed quite inviting. Shaking her head at her unease, Kaoru hurried after Soujirou and they entered the welcoming glow of the old roadhouse together.

The door opened and immediately they were assaulted with light and sound. The boisterous music they had heard hints of when they had approached the door was turned just loud enough to fill the entire hallway they stepped into with the warmth of welcome, but it was also just low enough prevent too much of the sound from slipping outside. The receptionist desk was empty, but a bell sat with a small red ribbon tied to its richly painted brown handle. Kaoru looked around at the pictures collected in the hallways of people that either worked there or travelers passing through. The muff that Megumi and Sanosuke had given her had kept her hands warm from the frosty air, but after stepping into the inn, it felt strangely inappropriate to keep her hands buried within the soft fur.

The tinkling of the bells made Kaoru turn and see that Soujirou had scrutinized the bell enough to experimentally ring it. The boyish look on his face made her smile, and the hostess that came to answer seemed to have felt the same way. "May I help you?" The woman asked as she swept gracefully into the room, eyes kind but shrewd as they eyed Soujirou.

"Oh yes!" Soujirou eagerly replied with a grin. "We're mighty hungry and looking for a place to stay for the night, as well," he said as he patted his stomach. "Do you have any available rooms, here?" he inquired.

"Yes, we do," the woman answered excitedly. "You're the first customer we had in days. Rumors of bandits have been keeping everyone away!"

"Bandits?" Kaoru inquired at the unsettling news before Soujirou and she shared a look of puzzlement at this declaration. The woman's eyes seem to gleam as they landed on Kaoru, or rather, the material of Kaoru's clothes as the young girl was scrutinized as well.

"Why, didn't you hear?" The hostess asked innocently, "There have been rumors of bandits around these parts for the last few years!"

Soujirou scratched his head thoughtfully. "Ah! So this is the place I've read about in the newspaper!" He grinned happily when he remembered.

Kaoru glared at him a bit harshly at this, not at all pleased. "Idiot!" she huffed, "I can't believe you would forget such a thing!"

Looking extremely apologetic, the young man waved his hand in front of himself, trying to placate the agitated looks he was receiving from the younger girl. "Sorry, sorry!" he chuckled in unapologetic good humor. "I don't get out much so this particular tibit escaped my thoughts. Truly I'm sorry, but I was so excited about the trip that I did not think of the dangers." There was a gleam in Soujirou's eyes that made Kaoru doubt his words. The young man did not seem to be an adventure seeker, but Kaoru was beginning to pick up in the things that Soujirou told her of that there was more to this young man than meets the eye.

Kaoru sighed. It was too late now, so she shot Soujirou another stern look before turning to the amused hostess. "A room for two then," she said as primly and as adult-like as she remembered seeing Megumi acted with such admirable grace.

"Method of payment?" the hostess asked with a nod of her head. Kaoru rummaged through her bag to pay but Soujirou put his hand gently to halt her movements.

"Megumi San and Sanosuke San insists that all such things be provided for from them," Soujirou smiled down at the bewildered Kaoru.

Surprised by this, she stared at him wide-eyed as he inquired for the price and began to lay the money on the table. "I-I can't let you do that!" Kaoru cut in angrily. "They have done so much for me already, and so have you! I can't accept anymore of your aid." she insisted.

"No," Soujirou cut her off firmly, his smile almost disappearing from his face but it was the firm and stubborn glint in his gaze that quieted Kaoru from further protests. "They insisted," Kaoru was left sputtering before the amused hostess as Soujirou walked inside where the hostess had pointed them in the direction of dinner.

"Hey!" Kaoru waved and chased after him. "I'm not done with you yet!"

"Do you think...?" the hostess inquired as a shadow fell upon her after Soujirou and Kaoru disappeared down the hall.

"Rich enough for a profit to last us through winter," the voice answered. "Too bad she's so young, she'd be a beautiful woman one day." The voice lamented.

The hostess sighed in utter exasperation at this. "Hentai," she muttered as she cast a pitying glance at the doorway their young guests disappeared into.

**-**

Kaoru sipped her soup with care as her eyes wondered over the warm wood paneling and framed pictures. From outside, the noise was loud enough for her to have thought that the place was packed, but she soon discovered that hardly anyone was here. Maybe the other guests have already retired, but the hall was empty and so was the dinning room.

"It's eerily empty, isn't it?" Kaoru inquired after Soujirou. All the stories that Kenshin told her about bandits and robbers came to mind as she sipped her soup. She was suddenly very unease over the entire situation.

"It is a roadhouse," Soujirou scratched his head thoughtfully. "Traveling season has long passed, so it's not too unexpected that we'd find such a place lacking in guests."

"Still," Kaoru insisted as she bit into the bread, "something seems off here." Beneath the warm music and delicious food, something seemed off in the inn to Kaoru. Everything seemed to be a surface facade, and Kaoru wasn't sure she wanted to know what was beneath the warmth. Looking this way and that, she couldn't help but feel as if the very place came from a book and she had just stepped into somebody else's story. Her watch told her it was approaching midnight, and Kaoru felt suddenly like Ali Baba trapped within the thieves cave, waiting for his executioners to return. It was a strange feeling that she could not describe or explaining the origins of, but it was there like the silent forest on the other side of the road waiting to be acknowledged.

Shrugging off her unease, she forced a smile at Soujirou. "Bed time?" The young man inquired innocently.

"Yup," Kaoru yawned into her hand as she stretched. "This is far past mine. I'm so sleepy." She picked herself up from her chair as a wave of dizziness hit her. "Soujirou San..." she murmured as she fell back onto the chair. "My body feels... heavy..."

The alarms in her head started to fade as Soujirou's slumped form fuzzed before her eyes and all things went into darkness. Somewhere, she heard someone's clothes rustling and voices falling away.

"Are they asleep?" a man's voice inquired.

"Of course, they are," another answered haughtily. "I know what I'm doing!"

"Maybe we should slit their throats first," another suggested.

A ruckus ensued as a sultry, feminine voice protested fiercely. "Let her live! I want a playmate and she's my age! Did you see? Did you see? I've found a boken in her pack as well! I'm sure we'll have much in common!"

"Misao Chan! Aren't you supposed to be in bed?" a stern male voice rasped.

"What?" the voice demanded, all seductiveness gone from its tones. "Why, I ought to..."

And it was then that Kaoru found the words fade into the distance as she was hurled into darkness.

**-**

Kaoru was playing by the riverside with Kenshin. Her little hands grasped at the stones to throw into the rushing river. The sky was dark overhead, but there was a lot of light for some reason, a dancing river of rainbow colors and stars. Kaoru paused in her stone throwing to watch the light show overhead and it was then that Kenshin reached over and grasped her wrist. "I need that piece," he said to her.

"Kenshin?" Kaoru looked down to see him writing in hiragana with the pebbles in his hands. Endearingly, she noticed he was just as bad at placing the stones correctly as he was at writing it with a pen. In her heart, she knew, Kenshin hadn't really changed in all this time. Her fingers wrapped around his cold ones, while her eyes clouded with worry. "Where are you, Kenshin?"

"Right here," he answered. His amber gaze was as cold as his touch, yet she knew he had no idea what she had meant when she had asked him her question. "How do you write Eternity in Kanji, Kaoru?"

Kaoru blinked at him in surprise. "Eh?"

"It's time to wake up, Kaoru Dono," he told her instead without waiting for a reply. And then, Kaoru woke up, not sure why Kenshin was saying her name so strangely.

**-**

Somewhere, a wolf howled into the night. Kaoru snapped her eyes open with a start. "Wake up Kaoru," an insistent voice broke into her sleepy haze as she glanced around with surprise. She tried to move her hand to brush away her bangs, but discovered they were bound, and so were her feet. Kaoru gasped in surprise, wide-eyed, disoriented and filed with dread, she froze for a moment as the voice came from behind her. "Kaoru," something wiggled against her back. "Are you awake?"

"Sou-Soujirou?" she murmured in relief as the familiar voice registered in her mind.

"Apparently we have found our bandits," Soujirou said, his very voice filled with a smirking cheer that made Kaoru raise a brow in the grey-darkness.

"What are we to do?" Kaoru asked as she felt a shudder go through her, remembering all the tales she was told of. She certainly didn't want to turn up like Ali Baba, that's for sure! Or any of the other unfortunate souls that had fallen victim to bandits and thieves in similar stories that warned one about the seedy dealings of the underground world.

"This is quite exciting though, isn't it?" Soujirou said instead, his breath catching in the dark. "And to imagine, I might have lived a boring life in the village. The real world hold so much more in store for us... How could I have imagined living my life as peacefully as to milking cows all day, living in the relative safety, and security that once appeased the lives of my ancestors?"

Kaoru frowned. "I don't see what's so exciting about being bound and having our lives threatened by bandits," she grumbled darkly.

"Why did you leave your home if not for an adventure?" Soujirou challenged. "Were you content with where you were and what you had?"

"Yes," Kaoru replied, "I was." She felt Soujirou stiffen behind her with surprise.

"Then why leave?" he asked after a period of silence.

"Because the real world had stole away the person most important to me. The one who I had wanted to share my small and sheltered life with is now gone. That man went out into this world and never returned as he had promised me," she murmured with a sorrowful smile on her lips. "I looked for him in the world we grew up in, under ever rock and crevice, but he was gone. So I went to look for him here, in the real world. I haven't found him yet, as this world is so much larger than the one I'm used to. To see him again, to find him... I would give up anything and everything."

Soujirou looked into the darkness then. "How do you know he wants to be found?" he asked after a long pause.

Kaoru leaned her head back tiredly against Soujirou unconsciously seeking support for the answer she had been telling herself in silence. "I don't," she said smiling as the feelings in her worst nightmares and moments of insecurities came flooding back to haunt her. A small tear glided down her face as she blinked away the moisture. "But, I love him, you know?" her small hands tightened against the material of her shirt, shivering in the darkness with more dread than from the cold. "I can't bring him back if he does not wish to, but something inside me makes me move forward because I know he is out there somewhere, waiting for me to find him. And maybe, when I do, he will be someone different than the boy I once loved so much. But, Kenshin is Kenshin. No matter who he becomes I will love him always. I don't know if he knows that anymore, if he remembers me and all the things we used to share. After all this time such precious memories of mine may no longer be recalled by him, living as he has in the excitement of the real world. But even if we are completely different people now, even if he finds me a stranger, I would still want him with all of me and love him with all of me. I want to say those words to him from the bottom of my heart, things that can never be said enough. Even just once, I want to be able to say them to him so that I will not wonder my life away at what could have been or would have happened otherwise. Haven't you wanted, at least, a chance to say goodbye?"

Soujirou lowered his head then, shoulders shaking as a chuckle escaped from his lips, startling Kaoru. Yet, turning, she heard a small sound of sadness escape his throat, like a choked sob of distress under such a carefree sound. "Someday," he finally said after he had calmed down, "maybe someone will love me like that." Somehow, in the times that would pass in the future, Kaoru would always remember Seta Soujirou as he was in that moment. Bound to her, yet back turned to her back, leaning away from her in the darkness as far as he could and crying under his laughter. She would remember him as the shadowed warmth who's laugh was hollow, a boy who was searching the world for someone to love and who would love him in return.

Kaoru smiled a real smile then, one filled with hope at the small honesties escaping such a strange boy. "Soujirou, we all have someone like that in the world. Small, large, boring or exciting a world that they live in, I am sure you will find that special person. The life you discover with that person then will be worth more than any of the adventures you can discover by yourself."

Kaoru could not see his face, but Soujirou moved his back against hers once more, and tiredly replied in a voice that she would never hear him use again. "I hope you are right, Kaoru. I hope you're right."

It was in that moment that light flooded into the room as an energetic girl came bouncing through, followed by a group of men and women whose faces were obscured by shadows, outlined as they were by the harsh light behind them. "You're both awake," a cheerful voice cried out enthusiastically as both Soujirou and Kaoru were momentarily blinded and wincing from the pain of the sudden light. "Good," the voice turned sly, "now we can talk of a negotiation."

**-**

Makimachi Misao would never admit herself to being a spoiled child, though Kaoru found it difficult to describe the girl without the word coming up at least once. Determined, cheerful, energetic and willful to a fault, Misao would grow up to be a woman to be reckoned with, no one could deny that. But spoiled would also not be an adjective far from the truth. The only child and heir of a deceased but still infamous ninja leader, Misao would one day come to rule the underworld she was born into, and already the younger girl was confident to the point of arrogance, and used to getting her way no matter the consequences. And that was how Kaoru found herself becoming the official "playmate" of Makimachi Misao, though "slave" or "hostage" would have been a far more fitting title.

Ranging from hair care to playing dress up, Kaoru discovered herself forced into various activities that once she would never have dreamed herself doing. And then, there was the sparring. Trained as she was, Misao and Kaoru had two completely different fighting techniques, and though it made sparring interesting, Kaoru had to come up with new ways to fend for herself, at least she had to learn to do it quick if she didn't want to lose any precious limbs. When Misao trained, there was an intensity about her that made Kaoru see that truly, this younger girl had a potential to one day become a dangerous and strong opponent against any adversary. But for now, in a small courtyard, they were just two girls practicing the art of fighting the way they knew best one bent on maiming the other while the latter was bent on remaining whole for another day.

Kaoru had counted two weeks passing at the inn, and already she was growing restless to leave and continue her mission to find Kenshin. Yet, no opportunities came up, as everyone at the Aoiya was a fully trained fighter, dedicated to stealth and keeping Kaoru and Soujirou within. She could see the frost creeping over grass and the glass of windows in the early mornings, lasting longer by each passing day. Her thoughts were filled with Kenshin, but still the ninja group that had captured them demanded her presence. Soujirou had eagerly requested to join their ranks in return, much to the surprise of the Oniwaban. And he had skillfully dodged the round of fists that Kaoru sent his way once she figured out that he had planned this all along. It took three people to haul an angry Kaoru off of Soujirou, but immediately the ninja group taken a liking to both of them even if Kaoru could have lived without any of her capturers' admiration for her spunk or Soujirou's hidden skills and talents.

Still, having never had a close girl friend, Kaoru was surprised by the intimate conversations that Misao would entrust upon her when Misao tired of doing whatever strange, exotic ideas the younger girl could fathom. Makimachi Misao, though strong and spoiled and determined, was still a girl. She was innocent, brash, naive, and surprisingly open in more things than she was willing to admit to or let on; though, at the same time, Misao was far wiser than Kaoru in other things. All of these were qualities that were hard to separate from the equally hot-tempered disposition that Misao showed to the world. In the few days that Kaoru had known the girl, she was finding herself liking the other easily.

It was hard not to like Misao, and Kaoru found herself to be no exception when she started to enjoy the time she spent with the future leader of the Oniwabanshu more and more. However, this was not one of those moments as Kaoru barely dodged an expertly thrown kunai while barely warding off the second one that came shadowing the first. "Damn," Misao swore as she let loose a flying kick, "you're getting used to my attacks already!"

Kaoru quirked her mouth grimly for she wasn't the only one. Misao was quick as lightening and Kaoru found it hard to keep up with her younger counterpart as the two weaved back and forth, in and out of each other's range. It would have lasted forever if Misao's lecherous Grandfather hadn't come out and nearly choked the girl in mid-attack. "Lunch time," the white-haired man sang, remaining blissfully unaware of the murderous look on Misao's face as she was turning purple in his grip. "My Misao darling, you mustn't starve yourself. You're as skinny as a pole already! How are we ever going to find you a husband if you continue to eat like a bird and look like a boy?"

"Jiya!" Steam seemed to puff angrily out of Misao's ears as she growled out her guardian's name. The ugly shade of purple that colored Misao's face seemed more from her anger now than from a lack of oxygen. "Demon Bird Kick!" the young girl screamed as she skillfully evaded out of the older man's grip and then proceeded to nail him in the forehead with her foot.

"So cruel," Jiya mumbled out brokenly from his place on the ground.

Kaoru covered up her laughter behind a cough, innocently looking away as Misao shot her a heated stare. "Lunch time, Miss Misao!" Soujirou looked out into the courtyard with an easy grin on his face. "Ah, Miss Kaoru, you seemed to have gotten better." Kaoru blinked at this surprised. She admit she might have improved now that she had found a sparring partner, but it was not like the strict instructions she had been put under when learning the way of the sword with her Father...

Father.

For a moment, Kaoru turned her gaze to the winter skies and thought of the home she left behind worriedly. "What would he think of me now if he were to see me?" She wondered out loud.

"Who?" Misao inquired curiously.

Surprised by the other's nearness, Kaoru blinked at her companion. "What was your Father like, Misao?" she asked instead. Misao was as curious as a cat, the only way to avoid her millions of questions was distracting her with others. Still, eventually, Misao would come back to the topic at hand. At the moment though, Kaoru didn't want to think of the things she left behind and the life she had abandoned to search for Kenshin.

"Father?" Misao asked as she linked arms with her new-found friend to walk into the house. "He was very tall," Misao said, "at least that's what everyone tells me."

"You don't remember him?" Kaoru asked surprised. "That's rather sad."

"No it's not," Misao said with a smile. "Everyone that I know and love is here and with me. What is there to be sad about? I admit that I don't know my father or my mother, but Jiya tells me about them enough so that I won't have to wonder too much anyway. After all, I can't really miss what I never had." Misao's face was hidden by her bangs as the shorter girl leaned against Kaoru's shoulder. "There is... someone..." Misao said softly, almost as if to herself. "Someone I miss very much." But by that time they had reached the dining hall and their conversation was left unfinished.

**-**

In the evening, Misao dragged Kaoru to her cave behind the house. It was a very strange cave with shallow caverns located in a place where a small, rocky wall stood, as if testifying to a time when a mountain had once resided there instead. In the cavern animals of all shapes and sizes lived. It was Misao's pride and joy, and she commanded most of them with an enthusiastic vigor that made even the most vicious creatures quail. This day, Misao led Kaoru deeper into the cave than they had ever gone before and in the furthest corner, deep in the Earth, a chain could be heard rattling and dragging against the rocks.

"Misao?" Kaoru asked with curious dread. The air was cold, Kaoru's own breath misted before her eyes before disappearing from sight as they climbed closer and closer to the dragging sound up ahead of them.

"Shh," Misao warned as she put a mischievous finger to her lips. Blue-green eyes sparkled with mischief as they descend the last steps.

Twin golden eyes, predatory and dark peered out from the shadows as a deep, rumbling growl can be heard. While Kaoru took a surprised step back, readying herself into a defensive position, her playful companion only laughed before throwing a kunai straight into the darkness. Kaoru felt her hand tightened against the handle of her wooden boken as the golden eyes suddenly disappeared and then slowly the creature appeared from the shadows, growling and defensive. Misao carelessly stuck her tongue out at the beast. "Bad dog, no biscuit."

"Don't insult me, Weasel Girl," the beast spoke. "I am no dog." Misao though was too preoccupied with being insulted herself, and proceeded to toss kunai at the chained animal who gracefully dodged each precise projectile easily, even in the confined space it was placed within.

"Weasel girl?" Misao screeched, making both the wolf and Kaoru grimace at the sound. "I'll show you! Demon Bird"

"Misao!" Kaoru was alarmed and promptly held back her friend and captor as the younger girl struggled to land a blow on the smirking animal. "Be careful of the wolf," Kaoru warned. "It is a wolf, after all."

"The Tanuki is right, you know?" The wolf flashed his fangs in a menacing, golden-eyed grin. "Get too close and I'll bite." He emphasized with a vicious snap of his jaw. The wolf's teeth were sharp and jutting, two rows of raw-white fangs that gleamed menacingly in contrast to the surrounding shadows and his eerie golden gaze.

Misao fumed a bit before smiling deviously. "No you won't, or actually, you can't." The ninja girl easily escaped Kaoru's loosened grip and bounced over, petting the growling wolf's head. "You're an enchanted wolf," Misao winked. "You're bound."

Kaoru blinked in question at this curious statement. "Bound?" she asked when she saw that the wolf could only glare as Misao stroked his fur.

"A foolish animal indeed," Misao sighed. "A witch had put a spell upon him so that he may speak, I think. But what a surprise when he came to this place and the Oniwabanshu caught him and put him on a leash." Misao practically purred in satisfaction as the wolf shot her a menacing look. "A talking wolf would make quite a profit at the fair next spring, you know?"

"You don't know the half of it, Weasel Girl." The wolf snarled at them as he evaded the ninja girl's grasps and lay in the shadows. "When the moon is full, when the sun is dark, true forms are revealed. I am not a wolf that speaks like a man, I am a guardian in the form of a wolf. I patrol the lands under my domain, and you bound me here like a useless pet." The wolf narrowed his golden gaze, voice filled with contempt as he spat out the words with distaste. "No witch can bind this wolf. If you want a dog, go get yourself a dog. But a wolf is a wolf, remember that well. For given the chance, I shall bite off the hands that had once sought to tame me. For I am not a toothless beast, nor will I ever bow down to a foolish, human master." Chest rumbling with an indignant growl, the wolf's eyes glowed with something of a promised threat.

Kaoru tilted her head to the side with a curious expression as she focused on what the beast had said earlier. "You have patrolled these lands?" she whispered as his words sunk in. The wolf turned his dark head in Kaoru's direction and their gazes met. She did not back down in fear as she faced him forcefully, ignoring the shiver that threatened to engulf her and the urge to turn away from the piercing, scrutinizing gaze of the wolf. It was a hungry gaze, a predatory gaze that only a hunter could have. It was a gaze that promised death and vengeance.

"Another foolish human," the wolf licked his lips with a threatening smile curving his mouth into a snarl over jagged fangs. "Do you not have ears to hear? I patrol all that remains in my domain. The justice of the lands is: Aku Soku Zan." The wolf flashed his white fangs that gleamed like ivory against his dark fur. Ferocious eyes of power, barely restrained, stripped away at any pretenses Kaoru might have had about him. Even with the promised safety of a spell that bound the wolf in his supposedly harmless state, Kaoru did not feel safe. "But you desire something from me, girl? A question, perhaps, that only I may answer?" the growling-purr was as dangerous as the fangs the wolf possessed.

"I wish to know if you have, perhaps, seen a boy?" Kaoru struggled to keep from stumbling over her words as she refused to back down from that challenging stare. Misao turned curiously to her friend then, startled by the eagerness that made Kaoru's voice tremble in the cold night air. "A boy with hair as red as a cardinal's feather and one eye the color of spring irises while the other is like that of a tiger's eye. I have been searching for him long and hard, but hardly have I heard news of him."

"Perhaps I've had such a thing for dinner once." The wolf's eyes held her gaze for a few moments longer before a deep, rumbling laugh came shaking out of his chest at her absurdly horrified look. "A foolish girl, indeed!" the wolf observed. The rumble in his throat and his careless words made Kaoru's expression turn from fright to fierce and angry determination. "That foolish boy you ask, I have seen." The wolf replied, ignoring the initial glare and the latter surprised gasp from Kaoru. "Deep in the grasps of the Snow Queen, he has gone. So far north they have traveled that the sun comes shining full days for months until darkness falls to night in equal times. That is where my domain meets hers, where the sky is a blaze with fire and light. It is home for me there, and far from here," the wolf held a faraway look, almost forlorn, as if he was reminiscing. It was a human look on a wolf's vicious features, sharp, handsome and fearsome, all at once. Yet, the moment quickly passed. "That boy is as good as dead," said the wolf. "His heart should be as black and blue as the ice of her majesty's palace. For when I saw him passing in her shadow, his lips were already turning blue from the coldness in his soul. And she, a ruler of despair and hopelessness is no better of. No, that abomination of a woman is less of a ruler and more of a cursed being."

Kaoru shook her head then, stepping so close to the wolf that they were nearly nose to nose. The wolf's warning growl did nothing as fierce blue eyes bore into him. "Kenshin," she corrected. "His name is Kenshin and not '_boy_.' He is far stronger than you think him to be. And he is _not_ dead. I know it from the bottom of my heart that he is not dead."

Misao watched with wide-eyed surprise at this, and the wolf's sardonic expression became a serious one. "Your Kenshin is dead," the wolf expressed slowly. "He may live still in the body, but his soul has been taken over by the ice of the Snow Queen's touch and the hatred stemming from all of mankind. You cannot save him, child that you are. No one can. In all the years I've lived, long before your birth or his, long before your parents and their parents, none have resisted the curse of the Snow Queen's touch, not even herself."

Kaoru smiled then at the wolf and his strange words. "I may not be able to save him," she answered bravely, "but I will never give up on believing in Kenshin. Even if the whole world believe him gone or dead or hopelessly lost, so long as I can feel him in my heart, so long as I love him, I will search for him and I will believe in him. That Kenshin I feel inside of me and have known since birth, he has the strength needed to save himself. This I have always known and I will always believe it to be so."

"Foolish girl," the wolf shook his great head. "Foolish."

Misao stood silently in contemplation before she finally spoke. "I shall let you go, Wolf, if you would lead my Kaoru to her Kenshin, wherever he may be."

Kaoru turned her head in surprise at her new-found friend. "What?" she asked surprised.

"I know a girl like you Kaoru," Misao smiled. And the childish face melted away to show that of a young woman who constantly sought the sky on a grey day, the face of a woman waiting for someone precious to return. Kaoru recognized that face, for she had seen it in her times of sorrow, before she had set out into the real world. It was a face between resignation and despair, a face that she would have continued to carry upon her expression if she had not ventured out into the world as she had. "That girl had loved a young man fiercely as a child, but he too was called away by the outside world. She had wanted to run away and look for him, but she was afraid that when she found him, if she finds him, he would turn her away. It has been over a year since he had left to test his wits against the world, leaving this little girl behind in this isolated place in the middle of nowhere, far behind him. She had waited long enough," Misao grinned then, all her sorrows melting away. "You have given that girl hope again, Kaoru. Because that girl is Makimachi Misao, and being afraid of such things is foolish, especially for her. Now I see, waiting here by the roadside, afraid to step out into the real world, that was someone not meant to be me. I will never again accept such a person to be the one I define as myself. I am not waiting for him to come back anymore. I will find him and show him I'm strong enough to be by his side, always."

"Misao," Kaoru murmured in admiration.

Misao shook her head as if clearing it of nostalgic memories. "Deal, Wolf? I know you have ears enough to have heard my proposal the first time." The ninja girl mocked with a smirk on her face.

The wolf flashed his fangs lazily at them. "The proposal before your sentimental speech?" the wolf teased, "I heard you, Weasel Girl." Misao glared daggers at the wolf and her kunai might have landed if the beast was any less swift and skillful at dodging them. "You are not afraid I will eat her?" The wolf questioned, eyeing Kaoru with a predatory look in his eyes.

Kaoru held her hand to Misao's mouth before the girl could start a fight. "If you give me your word of honor, on your belief of Aku Soku Zan, I will agree to Misao's proposal."

The wolf tilted his head cunningly at Kaoru before nodding. "Alright," said he, "I shall take you to the edge of my domain and the beginning of the Snow Queen's country. From there, you're on your own, foolish Tanuki."

Kaoru felt a twitch just beneath her eye at the nickname. "Idiot wolf," she muttered to express her growing annoyance. She could see the wolf heard her well enough as his ears turned this way and that, catching all the sounds from far and wide. Perhaps, that was how the beast heard of Kenshin's passing. Annoying and arrogant as it appeared to be already, if Kaoru wanted to find Kenshin, she would have to work with the wolf. As if reading her thoughts, the wolf caught her gaze and flashed his gleaming white fangs at her. It was a menacing and sardonic smile that reflected the very atmosphere of the dark, wet cave the wolf was chained within.

**-**

By the fire, Kaoru and Misao exchanged parting gifts. The dark-haired girl had seen the gleam in Misao's eyes upon finding Kaoru's muff placed within her hands. A murmur of approval escaped from the girl when Kaoru had first let Misao run her hand through the soft fur, but now there was only the delighted joy of possessing the muff shining in Misao's eyes. Misao in turn gave Kaoru an outfit able to endure the coldness of the far north that the dark-haired girl was traveling to, along with gloves so large that they ran up to Kaoru's elbows. In secret, the two exchanged the car keys that Kaoru had stolen from Soujirou as a trade for the freedom of the wolf.

"I think Soujirou is fitting in quite well, don't you?" Misao asked with admiration in her eyes as the two girls watched Soujirou spar with Omasu and Okon once the transaction was over with.

"He has talent," Kaoru dismissed off-handedly. She had yet to forgive the boy entirely for his earlier deceptions, and hence, Kaoru refrained from giving him any direct compliments.

Misao giggled behind her hand. "He's kind of cute. If I wasn't so taken with my Lord Aoshi, I might have fallen for your Soujirou." Misao had a far away look in her eyes, perhaps thinking of what could have been as her young eyes followed the flowing form of Soujirou's movements. "If I didn't know Lord Aoshi, I might have had my first kiss already." Misao sighed dramatically.

Kaoru looked surprised at this. "Misao?"

"Knowing him, loving him, I can't imagine sharing special moments like that with anyone else. Even kind, smart and handsome Soujirou can't sway my emotions." Misao made a face at her own words. "How annoying," the younger girl toed a pebble. "I've loved him so long I can't remember not loving him, nor can I imagine loving someone else like this... Feeling this way, I can't imagine being able to feel this way again."

"Who's Aoshi, Misao?" Kaoru inquired after a long pause had settled between the two of them.

"Lord Aoshi?" Misao smiled dreamily then, her mind going to the past now, traveling the lines of time. "He came to us fourteen winters ago. He was an orphan with no parents, running away from home. My father picked him up and adopted him into the Oniwaban, trained Lord Aoshi himself, Jiya tells me." Misao looked into the night sky, their warm breath materializing in puffs of fog. "He was the best fighter here, a genius right from the start. He was able to beat my father before he was barely fifteen years of age, and he earned himself the title of strongest by the age of sixteen. But then, the world changed, and there were no more need for ninjas anymore. So he set out into the world to find a place for himself with some of the men that had helped raise me with him, after my father had died. I remember how he didn't even say goodbye, sneaking off into the night like that." Misao growled angrily. "When I see him, I'll give him a wallop for leaving me like that! So ungentlemanly. He puts all my father's teachings to shame he can't even treat a woman decently."

"Misao darling, you're not a woman yet. You're just a child still." Jiya cackled after sneaking up on the two unsuspecting girls. "But when you become a woman, I'll fend off all your suitors valiantly until a brave, lone suitor is able to defeat me!"

"Jiya!" Misao exclaimed, glaring and snarling at the same time at her cackling guardian. "Stop eavesdropping you old pervert! And stop acting like such a lunatic!"

It was how the last night at the inn was spent. Late that night, after the inn was mostly asleep, the two girls quietly crept out after having drugged the soup for everyone except themselves. Misao and Kaoru hugged under the moonlight before parting. "Good luck, brave Kaoru," Misao grinned. "I hope you find this Kenshin of yours well."

"Thank you, Misao. And good luck to you too," Kaoru said a little sadly. Misao and Kaoru held each other tight one last time. "I am sure your Lord Aoshi will be as happy to see you as you are to see him when you find him."

From the shadows gold and silver glittered as the wolf stealthily crept out. A blanket rested over his fur as a silver chain hung from his neck. Golden eyes surveyed the area around Kaoru and Misao before landing on the two girls by the white car. "Let's go," said the wolf. The two girls looked at each other one last time, knowing this might be the last time they will ever see each other again.

"Goodbye," they whispered in the dark before their paths diverged down the same road in opposite directions.

* * *

_**to be continued... **_


	6. Upon the Snow Fields of Akabeko

**In Our Garden of Snow and Roses**

_"Between the conception,_

_And the creation,_

_Between the emotion,_

_And the response,_

_Falls the Shadow."_

- _T. S. Eliot_

(_The Hollow Men_)

**_

* * *

_**

**_Upon the Snow Fields of Akabeko_**

_The good is, like nature, an immense_

_landscape in which man advances through_

_centuries of exploration._

_-- Jose Ortegay Gasset_

_(Meditations on Quixote)_

Kaoru clutched at the long strands of soft fur on the wolf's neck. They sped through the forest so fast that the shadows of trees blurred to black and the wind was silent to her ears in the darkness. It was almost like they were flying, and before she knew it, the trees fell away into the distance until only clusters remained. On and on the beaten path went until the wolf made a sharp turn into a field that seemed like an ocean of emptiness, stretching forever into the distance.

Wrapped with a blanket around her, Kaoru fell to sleep in the cold night and woke to see they had gone to a place she knew not of. No civilization seemed to be in sight for miles, and the dead grass from the night before were now covered by thick tufts of snow. She could not figure how deep the snow was, for the wolf traveled so fast and so lightly that he did not leave even one paw print in the gathered white marred by the red of the setting sun. Still, they flew on until darkness came and the sky became infested with billions of stars, their lights no longer masked by the lights of human civilization. And though Kaoru could hardly see the ground or the landmarks that they passed, she saw instead rivers and bands of light, snaking and dancing in the sky. Patterns upon patterns of it flowed before Kaoru's inexperienced eyes, so familiar a sight that she blinked in recollection of the distant dream and the sounds that sang from the sky, an unfamiliar song.

"Kenshin," she murmured to the darkness overhead. Kaoru, remembering his words and the river of lights that were not as vivid as the reality of it now, followed the beautiful dance of lights with awe in her gaze. "Eternity?" she mouthed, not quite sure of the significance of that single word.

The wolf's ears twitched but no words were exchanged until at last they stopped. He trotted a bit more in the endless snow, sniffing the air with a shrewd glint in his eyes that Kaoru could not see. Not knowing why they had stopped moving, Kaoru looked around and gasped in amazement when the snow before them fell away to reveal a woman with pale skin and dark hair. Rising, her figure emerged as if the woman was breaking away from water. "Mibu's wolf," said the woman in greeting and surprise. "Have you finally learned the lesson of humbleness so to let off this curse you carry?"

The wolf snorted beneath Kaoru. "I will not concede to such petty foolishness, woman," said he in reply, fur ruffled and chest rumbling in a growl of protest. "The only curse you have ever accused me of carrying was my arrogance, but I believe I informed you last time that those accusations were misplaced."

Kaoru squinted at the woman whose pale face glimmered softly under moonlight, pure and unblemished. "My name is Kaoru. Kamiya Kaoru," she introduced herself to the snow woman. "Are you the Snow Queen that the wolf has told me of?" asked Kaoru in curiosity and awe.

The wolf barked a laugh while the woman only raised a sculpted brow at this in amusement. "That cold fish?" the snow woman asked with a small smile twisting her lips. "No dear, not I. My name is Tae of the Akabeko's Fields of Snow, guardian of this land that you stand on now." Tae smiled kindly at the flustered Kaoru. "It is alright dear, that woman's self-proclaimed title is easily misleading. Come, I invite you in child." And with a dour look at the wolf, Tae sighed heavily before adding, "And you too, Hajime. I guess there's no way around inviting a wolf into a helpless woman's home now," she said, "though I would not have expected such slyness from a wolf who doesn't seem to have any skills but bluntness."

Only then did the wolf venture forward from his spot before Tae, taking Kaoru with him. He snorted at the comment she made while he gracefully leapt further onto the fields. "Sly? Helpless?" he asked. "Compared to whom?"

Tae only smiled mysteriously as she raised tables and chairs around them. A fire place appeared with fire blue as thick ice, warm and cackling and filled with magic.

Kaoru looked about in awe as she tentatively got off of the wolf. Her foot settled upon the firm ground beneath her feet. Kaoru quickly discovered that wherever she walked in the thick snow, she would not sink, even though she knew the snow must be deep where she stood. The snow itself was soft and warm beneath her feet, and Kaoru laughed in fascination, running around upon the fluff with vigor before finally settling. Her flushed cheeks shone as she smiled brightly at the amused looks sent her way by her hostess and the usually aloof wolf. Food was then laid out before her, ice-crystal plates and bowls, lavished with warm soups and exotic looking things that tantalized the senses. Realizing her hunger, Kaoru needed only glance at the smiling and inviting face of Tae to begin the meal placed before her.

"My, what a hungry girl," laughed the hostess. But no matter how much Kaoru ate, the plates never emptied. So, Kaoru stopped only when she could eat no more, as the food before her remained perfectly arrayed, as if she had never touched it.

"What magic is this?" Kaoru exclaimed in surprise and curiosity.

Tae grinned as she cast a glance at the wolf and then to Kaoru. "I shall answer your question. But first, I wish to hear of your journey, Hajime," Tae addressed the wolf. "And then, I wish to hear our dear Kaoru's tale as well."

So the wolf began his tale. He spoke about how he had one day traveled far from his domain, upon hearing a tale that was whispered on the winds about the injustice south of his borders. Wanting to only survey to see if such things would encroach upon his territory, the wolf found himself injured when he had had an encounter with an enchanted bush and the nymph that lived within it. A cruel and clever nymph it was, for it tricked the wolf to trap him in the cruel grips of a bush that would not let go of him, leaving it vulnerable to be captured by humans.

Dissatisfied with what he had seen in the smoke stacked factories only a few miles from his domain, the wolf had only wanted to go back home. But the nymph would not let him and only when the Oniwaban arrived did she escape, leaving him behind to be captured. By that time he was weak from exhaustion and hunger that he was unable to defend himself against the experienced fighters of the Oniwaban. Those men then chained him to an enchanted rock in the cave that refused to budge no matter how harshly he pulled, collaring him with silver that would not break and forcing him to not be able to harm anyone through its own brand of magick.

"Tokio would be glad to see you back," winked Tae at the disgruntled wolf. The wolf only to shot a contemptuous look at their hostess, knowing she was laughing at his wounded pride. "And what of your tale, Kaoru dear?" Startled by this sudden attention, Kaoru swallowed her questions for the wolf and told her own story. She spoke of Kenshin and their childhood years, about how he disappeared on his way to college and her journey to find him. She could not see it, but Tae saw the glow that seemed to surround Kaoru as her eyes sparkled more brightly than before as she spoke of her memories shared with someone so obviously lost to the clutches of the Snow Queen. Even the cynical wolf stayed quiet, watching Kaoru too with lidded eyes.

"So I came," ended Kaoru. "To this place that I have dreamt of and that I have heard his trail led to."

Tae smiled then, and nodded slowly. "Sleep and rest here for the night, child. Soon you will reach the end of my and Hajime's territory and enter the Snow Queen's domain. But for now, you need rest."

Kaoru agreed and slept in a bed of snow, softer and warmer than any blanket and bed she had ever slept upon. And there she dreamt of Kenshin, secure in the knowledge of his growing nearness.

As Kaoru dreamed, the wolf and Tae walked far enough not to disturb their dreaming guest. "What do you think of her?" asked the wolf to the snow woman.

Tae smiled softly then. "That girl is enchanted, that she is. There is testament enough with you here, humble and asking for my guidance in the matter. Have you not noticed yourself how she shines? Of all the girls and women who have come this way, none has shone as she has. Perhaps that sad curse set upon them, that unbroken chain of sadness and suffering will finally have a chance to break."

The wolf glanced into the sky, golden eyes piercing through any illusions that may lay there. "Will you help her? You who rules over winter are strongest now with autumn fading in the East. You with the powers of the wind and the cold and the snow, that rushes through the planes. Will you help this girl? Will you give her a potion to increase her speed and strength to that of twenty men so that she may vanquish the Snow Queen?"

Tae smiled ruefully at the wolf's words then. "I have seen much in my days, but I had never expected such a day as this when you compliment me on my powers and ask me such favors in one breath, Hajime." The wolf growled at Tae warningly, but the snow woman reacted not to it in the least. "Such strength will do not for her at all. She has no need of it. The Snow Queen in her lone tower will not fall to the strength of Man. She has reigned this long in her unchanging castle without having some wits about her. That woman has her own way of conquering those who had came before our Kaoru, though she has been long in waiting for this girl to break her link in the spell put upon her.

"That Kenshin has been taken by the things at the Icy Palace, because he has a splinter in his eyes so that all things of life seem lifeless, allowing what is lifeless to seem more alive. He has a splinter in his heart so that the love he once possessed became a bitter indifference that will freeze even the kindest and strongest of souls to stillness. Such things must be removed for Kaoru to reach him, for this boy to find his humanity again. If this cannot be done, he will belong to the Snow Queen no matter how strong or fast Kaoru may be. And she, our Kaoru, would be but another woman who had came and fallen under the spell of the Snow Queen."

"You can do nothing for her then?" The wolf asked bitterly.

Tae studied him long and hard then. "Don't be so foolish, Hajime. I only help those who need it. Even you must have seen the strength within this girl you have brought to my doorstep. You who help no man and only follow the narrow path of Aku Soku Zan, even you have been taken with her. Have any of the others compelled you to do so in their selfish, human love?" Tae smiled as she then knelt before the wolf. "I can give her no more powers than what she already possesses. Don't you see how great it is already? How all beings serve her and bends to her will? How she is able to travel the world without even shoes to protect her feet and yet still go on without care? She has the power that stems from her kindness and her innocence. A power that we must not speak of and that she must discover on her own as none before her has. If she cannot save her Kenshin on her own, if she cannot hold on to her beliefs, no one can help her accomplish it. She must go to the Snow Queen by the morrow and on her own. She must discover her own strength and her own heart without any help from anyone.

"Set her by the borders of that bush where the red berries grows – where you have first met Tokio – and let her walk the rest of the way into the domain of the Snow Queen on her own, as all the others before her had done. She must go to the person she most adores by herself, traveling into the Snow Queen's domain is her own decision and she must face all the consequences of that choice without help from anyone else.

"Do not stay with her to watch her go. Do not converse with her further or encourage her unnecessarily. Get her there and let her be. Do not linger. Come quickly back, you hear? Even you must abide by the rules set by that unending spell."

The wolf growled in displeasure, but reluctantly nodded to such instructions. They let Kaoru sleep for a few more hours before waking her when the time came for morning. Kaoru, rubbing her eyes in the darkness, yawned and looked about. "It's still dark," she noted.

"It is that time of the year once more. The sun does not rise for many days and many weeks, but even in such darkness there is light." Tae explained with a mysterious smile, nodding to the dancing rivers and bands of light overhead. The snow woman watched Kaoru for a moment as she shook of the sleep in her eyes. "Child, if your friend is not as he was anymore, if he is a complete stranger now, what will you do?"

Kaoru looked surprised, her eyes wide in the dark, though sleep still lingered in her gaze despite her attempts to become more wakeful. "I—" Kaoru thought on this for a moment before she smiled a quiet smile. "I will still love him. No matter who he is now, Kenshin will always be Kenshin to me. Even if I shouldn't, I know I would still love him."

Tae watched her expression a quiet moment longer before giving her an answering smile. "Remember that child. Remember that conviction." Without further explanation, the snow woman rushed Kaoru along the way to the waiting wolf. On his back she was set once more, and before she could blink, Kaoru was on her way further north as Tae waved her goodbye from some unseen doorstep.

"Oh! I have forgotten both my gloves and boots!" Kaoru exclaimed, alarmed at this discovery. She only realized this when they had escaped the warmth of Tae's domain and winter crashed down upon her exposed skin harshly. Kaoru shivered in the cold air as the magical snow field faded behind the two travelers. The wolf went on gravely and did not reply this time, not even with a sardonic comment, instead he forged on even more quickly with each passing moment. Before Kaoru could remark about anything else, she found herself set down at a bush with lush berries, red as blood.

"Over yonder, beyond this bush, is the Snow Queen's domain. Here is where we shall part," the wolf gruffly explained as he studied Kaoru under the seemingly eternal night sky. There was surprising softness in his gleaming, golden eyes as the wolf touched his nose to one of Kaoru's cold and shivering hands. "Goodbye, Tanuki." Before Kaoru could form a puzzled response, the wolf vanished from before her eyes.

"Hey! You come back here!" Kaoru commanded once she realized what had happened. "You cannot part in such a rude manner! It isn't cool, you know?" But she was only shouting to empty air and nothing more. Her voice faded in the silence. Shivering and alone she glanced around her, past the bush to the snow hills before her. Not having much of a choice, Kaoru forged on bravely, whipping away the angry tears from her eyes.

"Idiot wolf," she muttered to herself as she jogged on in the direction she was pointed to. However, she took one last glance backwards at where she had come from, sadly recalling her journey here. "Goodbye," she whispered an echo. For all her anger, Kaoru wished she had at least been able to reply to such words with finality, even if the sadness lingered.

* * *

_**to be continued...**_


	7. The Palace of the Snow Queen

**In Our Garden of Snow and Roses**

_"Between the conception,_

_And the creation,_

_Between the emotion,_

_And the response,_

_Falls the Shadow."_

- _T. S. Eliot_

(_The Hollow Men_)

_**

* * *

**_

_**The Palace of the Snow Queen**_

_Where there is love there is life._

– _Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi_

Kaoru sighed as she watched her breath turn white before her. She could not help but shiver violently in the cold, feeling the warmth being sucked out of her body with each passing moment. With anticipation as the only thing keeping her spirits going, she tucked her hands under her arms and began to hurry onwards into the snow covered fields that seemed to stretch on into infinite.

She had not been able to feel her feet for hours now, or at least, it seemed like hours. Yet, as she trudged on, each step made her wince all the more in the cold snow and the unforgiving winds. "Kenshin," she whispered through dry, cracked lips as she forced herself to go on. Soon, she could almost feel him near her, standing next to her. She knew, just over that next hill, if she just endured this a little longer, she would meet him again.

Soon.

She didn't notice the hot drops of tears that fell from her eyes in pain, nor the way they froze before leaving her cheeks. Tiny sparkling crystals shivered in the wind before being blown away. Yet, still she would not stop. Slowly, she did not know when, the wind stopped being so cold. Her vision was blurry, but she kept going on, clinging more and more tightly onto her hope of seeing him.

It had been so long, but she could almost hear his voice surround her, calling her name, laughing with her, soothing her fears, and settling her doubts. Kenshin was here. Kenshin was in the air, and all around her. Kenshin had been with her all this time, even though she may not have known it when she cried for him in the dark or when she was alone. Kenshin had promised long ago, and he had kept that promise, that he would never leave her.

Kaoru's gaze cleared as the last of the tears was blown away by the wind that no longer seemed cold. She felt enveloped in the memories of a cherished past, a person she loved so much and who had once loved her just as much in return. The snow no longer felt like ice that bit into her flesh, instead it felt like soft cotton, surrounding her feet and cushioning her steps.

Kaoru blinked in the cold. Her movements became more animated as her eyes caught sight of the rising towers of the palace that the Snow Queen presided over. She did not notice that grass and flowers sprouting from the footprints she left behind, nor did she notice that the cold and bitter wind could not touch her, much less harm her. Obliviously, she walked on, fascinated by the black-ice statues lining the sudden pathway paved in silver ice. She never looked behind to see them rising to bar her way, nor did she see them fail one by one, repelled by the very energy that protected her from the wind and snow.

The path before her seemed a glittering walkway, leading to some fabulous dream. The moonlight skies that rained down snow without a cloud in sight were fascinating to Kaoru. Her breath of white seemed to wrap around her, warming her through and through. Bounding forward, she soon reached the blue-white doors, thick and grand. The handles were intricately carved, and glowed like no marble she had ever seen. The icy handles melted before she could touch it and so did the very door itself. Surprised and guilty, but determined to see Kenshin as soon as possible, Kaoru went onwards. She stepped through the hole in the door and glanced around curiously, finding herself in a great hallway that stretched in all directions.

Behind her, vines began to grow upon the doors and reached into the freezing palace. For the first time ever, since the construction of the great palace, life flourished in the Snow Queen's hall. The wind sprite that was not too frightened or shy of Kaoru's presence came and whispered warmly that the halls were uncountable in the house of the Snow Queen. The wind spirits that haunted and guarded the lonely halls smiled for the first time in a long time when they saw that the little girl was kind and warm and so unlike their cold and indifferent mistress.

They told Kaoru tales of how the walls were pillars of snow and ice, held together by magick and illusions. They told her how the black ice coating the ground was smoother and stronger than marble; how the fractured and brilliant lights around them were from the very northern-lights that had guided Kaoru for much of her journey in the north; and how the pillars of ice were strong enough to withstand attacks from giants and polar bears -- things Kaoru had never before seen with her own eyes.

"Where is Kenshin?" She asked the wind after their whispers quieted and described how she remembered him from ages past, though she shuddered a bit at the memories of him within her dreams. The spirits consulted each other quietly as they guided her for hours through the swirling halls of unimaginable magick and beauty. Finally, they led her to a room where the surface of a frozen lake was what the ground was made of. Unlike the black-ice, this lake surface was splintered. The color itself was so white it was blue. There was no ceiling overhead. Instead, it opened to the dark night skies where stars coldly winked down at them, watching and judging silently, while endless snow fell down upon them, snow that did not pile when it landed, but disappeared upon the cool ice.

The wind told her that the lake was called the Mirror of Understanding, and that the Snow Queen would reside upon the throne at the center of the lake. They told her how the sky overhead was not really sky, but an illusion that lasted all year round. Then, one wind sprite told Kaoru that the boy was in a trance. It told her of the mirror he had made from a knife and ice, and how the Snow Queen promised him a present should he add the final spell to the mirror's completion. They spoke and Kaoru listened with half-an-ear, eyes wide with curiosity at how the surface reflected her fractured image, fascinated by the glow the Mirror of Understanding emitted upon the room.

As she stepped onto the surface, Kaoru felt more than knew what came to be. The person looking back at her was not her, but another. She saw the women that had stood here before her, and the memories of their despair weighed heavily upon them. Each was a woman who had lost their most important person. Each was a being who could not retrieve that person back. Their grief and their hopelessness washed over Kaoru a-hundred folds. These were the past Snow Queens, all of whom handed her despair down to the next generation like a crowning coronation - an eternal symbol of a woman abandoned, and who in turn, abandoned all else. The act turned her into a being with a heart of ice, whose only hope to follow her beloved was to bring another woman to take her place.

At least, that was what they believed in. In reality, each one of their precious someone turned into a guardian of the palace, a statuesque black being, seemingly made of ice and who felt no bite from the snow and cold. They were the beings that Kaoru had passed on her way to the Snow Queen's palace. Their identities were, however, forgotten by the women who took the Snow Queen's place. A woman who constantly traveled throughout the world, looking for a man who was loved and treasured whole-heartedly by a girl or woman, so much that she would likely break if he was taken away from her.

For a moment, the room was cold to Kaoru again. For a moment, she felt like giving in to a feeling she had once followed with familiarity, the feeling of undeniable sorrow and loss. But then she remembered Kenshin smiling at her, Kenshin reaching his hand out to her, Kenshin touching her injured knee with a clumsy kiss that didn't make the wound go away but gave her the courage to smile through her tears...

These feelings she had for him. No matter where he was or who he became, she would not and could not forget them. Kaoru felt the warmth of her breath worm around her again. She felt like her father had wrapped an extra thick blanket around her small body, on a cold day, one that made her feel snug to her toes.

Kaoru opened her eyes and looked in awe all around her until her eyes landed on a red-haired young man carving with the short sword from his onto an ebony crystal in the distant center of the Mirror. He was a dark contrast to the glowing blue-white ice he sat upon. The surface glowed beneath the endless night sky as he set upon the steps that surrounded the Snow Queen's throne, as grand and white as the ice it rested upon. Ivory, Kaoru thought when she neared. The transparent bone from some monstrous beast they called elephants in a book they read, clumsy and brutal looking and yet, somehow seemingly far kinder to kin then Man was known to be.

Kaoru paused at the steps, her eyes filled with hope. "Kenshin?" she called out to him, softly at first. Uncertain and trying to hold back her excitement, Kaoru momentarily forgot the despair of the Snow Queen that she had witnessed, images that still moved beneath her feet like shattered, glittering ghosts trapped within an unending play. He did not respond, but she was sure now, sure of the feeling that spread throughout her so painfully that she thought she would burst from such happiness. "Kenshin!" she wasn't sure what happened except that her voice had rose, the sound tickling the icicles around the lake to ringing music. Somehow she found her arms circled around his lean waist and still form.

But Kenshin did not respond to her cries anymore than he did to her whisper. Instead he continued to puzzle over what Kaoru realized was also ice. His lips were now blue instead of the pale pink she remembered them being, and both his eyes became a color of gold so bright it would have burned like the sun if it were not so cold and empty. His skin was unrecognizable, a color she would never have thought he would bare. Seeing him so completely different from the boy she grew up loving, Kaoru felt the tears fall from her eyes onto his red-hair that was no longer the bright red of a spring cardinal's feather. It was dull and lifeless, as the wolf had warned her that he would be. "Are you really Kenshin?" Kaoru asked fearfully. "The one I have always loved, and will always love?" Kaoru closed her eyes at the sound of her own words, suddenly feeling foolish for asking such questions. Suddenly, she remembered too many discouraging things. She paused for only a moment though before determinedly whipping away her tears. Afterwards, she clutched Kenshin close to her once more, her warm cheek touching the cold clothes that covered his back. But when she could hardly hear a heartbeat, the tears rose once more, unbidden, no matter how hard Kaoru fought against them.

"I love you," she whispered. The sound glided over the empty hallways as the flowers raised their heads towards her and Kenshin's still forms beneath the heavens. The wind stilled and all things seemed to hold their breath.

Her hot tears soaked through clothes and skin, until it reached and burned a path into the very depth of Kenshin. The grasses and vines grew around them, flowers bloomed. The room did not shake as Kaoru closed her eyes, her heart filled with conviction. "I love you," she said with certainty even though the words were soft with feeling. Then, she reached out of her heart to him, as she had done so many times when they had been children, and looked for him as she had always done so in her dreams.

"Kenshin...?"

**-**

His world was dark. There was no light. It was cold, colder than when Kaoru was outside in the snow and the wolf left her by the red-berried bush. It was a cold that went all the way passed one's bones and into a person's soul.

"Kenshin?" little Kaoru called out as she searched for him in the dark, navigating on nothing but memory. Long ago, they had played this game of searching for each other in this place that only they knew. As children they had built it from imagination and a common love filled with curiosity.

Now, she looks for him here, in this world she had not been able to share with him since their separation and his distance. Slowly she found a familiar path leading to a river-side of their childhood memories. The water was frozen and did not run, the fishes were dead within the ice, or sleeping, she could not tell. And Kenshin, he sat looking out into the distance, searching through the darkness, past the red-lined horizon.

Kaoru looked down, realizing she was glowing in this dark world, her hands pale and white like snow. As soon as the thought came so did the white fluff, surrounding them both with more than an empty, ebony night. "Kenshin," she said again. Her footsteps led her to his side, and she felt like she was coming home. "Do you remember me, Kenshin?"

He was looking far into the distance, into the darkness. "Everything's so ugly here. Is that the truth of it all?"

She paused and looked into the darkness too. For the first time in a long time, she saw through his eyes. He was distracted in this loneliness, this coldness that she was allowed to see. Her breath caught in her thought, watching the butchered memories of the past run before her eyes. Shaking her head, she wanted to scream. "Untrue! Untrue! It was so beautiful, why did you remember it like this?" But when she opened her eyes again, the images were gone.

"Was this, how you saw the world?" she asked timidly when the silence stretched too long to bear.

"Yes," he answered simply by the iced river, by the barren grounds covered with snow. She looked down at him, ready to argue that he was wrong, that it was not how she remembered the past. Yet, she didn't, silenced by what she saw there. The past few years came and colored the river red as blood beneath the ice. Amber flowers with withered and decaying petals decorated the bloody river's edge, instead of the violets she remembered. The world was dark here, filled with the smell of death.

She knew she should hate him a little for what he did, for tainting their most precious memories so. A part of her wasn't sure if she could ever forgive him. Kaoru could not look away though, for this was the truth she had been seeking all along. This was Kenshin now. He was the one she had been searching for all this time. Yet, when she looked down to him, she did not see the monster that she knew she should, as he had seen himself to be.

He was as she remembered him. Older, colder, and lonelier, but still Kenshin. She had traveled far to find him, met people and seen things she would never have imagined possible. She had become stronger than what she had once been, but she remembered too. All the things he had forgotten, all the things that made him who he had once been.

She remembered him, and he was not the monster he made himself to be. Then the words of the wind sprite came and she remembered the illusion of the ceiling and the ebony surface Kenshin was trying to carve onto. She remembered that even his memories were distorted here...

"Kenshin," she reached out to him in the coldness, light to his darkness, warmth to his cold. "I remember things differently." And she showed him in the darkness the light of the sun that he had forgotten. She showed him the smiles and the jokes they shared in place of the sneers he looked back upon. She showed him how he made her smile by the fountain with his childish words and her childish beliefs. She showed him how once he had helped others in need, healing those he could instead of spilling blood or causing grief. She showed him through the memories why she loved him, because she realized he had forgotten how to love himself and how people lived in the everyday world of wonder, even if they had forgotten it in the mundane things people did everyday.

Kaoru was Kaoru and Kenshin was Kenshin. So long as she remembered a part of his humanity, she would believe in it whole-heartedly. People were not monsters, they did things that could be monstrous, but they were only monsters if the hope was gone. Abandoned, how could they be more than what their actions dictated? How could they shed the skin of their ugliness and become something different?

Kaoru remembered herself, after she had lost hope. She would not lose it again, not without a fight. "No matter what happens, no matter who takes you or where you go, I'll find you Kenshin. Even if you become a monster, I'll remember your humanity. Please remember. Remember that I shall never abandon you. Never." Kaoru promised him in the dark when the memories danced around them like a story without end, turning the polluted river blue and changing the yellow grasses green. "I just want you to know, because I kept you close to me even when you were far away, that I believe in you, Kenshin. I believe in you.

"Come back with me, Kenshin. You are not a monster, you are just a boy that I will always love." In the darkness she reached out to him. In the darkness, she kissed him and whispered his name so that he would remember who he really was, beyond the mirror's reflection.

"Kenshin," she called out to him. Even though the human heart may not be able to reflect understanding, it could accept. It was meant to accept that most precious person for all that they were and will ever become.

**-**

Slowly, feeling returned in Kenshin as his heart of ice melted beneath Kaoru's tears and her memories; all of her love for him wrapped into each tear she cried for him and the out-stretched hand that had always been there, waiting for him to grasp onto. Then he heard her voice, singing a song he had never heard, one that encouraged him to wake from his dreamless sleep of a never-ending winter by a river of blood, he slowly came to. It felt as if he was breaking through the surface of that icy water, breaking the thin ice that had trapped them in the cold for so long.

Kaoru closed her eyes and sang a song that Enishi taught her one starless night, when she too had forgotten that she was not alone in the world. It conveyed all of the love and loss Enishi had felt when his sister said goodbye to him, one that Kaoru understood since Kenshin's disappearance from her life.

_"...In our rose garden, I shall always believe in us._

_No matter the places you've gone and the person  
you've become—_

_This physical space that separates our bodies  
will never separate our hearts..."_

As Kaoru sang, Kenshin remembered, and from those memories he cried until the piece of glass in his eye fell with his tears. "Kaoru?" he murmured reverently. He turned in her arms, his own encircling her shaking form.

Kaoru's eyes opened and widened as her voice stilled and the music that surrounded them turned to an echoing hum before fading to silence. "Kenshin?" she pulled back to look at him. Her hands trembled as she held his face. "Kenshin!" she cried out happily as she wrapped her arms around him.

"Thank you," he told her through chattering teeth, his wide, easy grin that she had missed was once more gracing his face.

"Whatever for?" she asked confused as she held onto him more tightly. Her voice conveyed the happiness he could not see on her face as she buried it into his chest.

"Thank you for believing in me, Kaoru." He held her through the emotions that she could not express through words. Her body trembled so in his, not from the cold, but from the joy of finding him again and the pain of their past separation. The Kenshin she believed in always and loved forever, she had finally found him again.

"I love you," she lifted her head and confessed more shyly this time next to his hot ear.

"I love you too," he grinned softly into her hair. "So much, it hurts." Laughing, they looked at each other, remembering the features they've missed, amazed at how the other had grown and changed. The night was so beautiful now despite the cold that neither felt as they shared each other's warmth.

When this was done, Kaoru turned and kissed Kenshin's cheeks and Kenshin was no longer cold. She kissed his eyes and they sparkled with a brightness that equaled her own. She held his hands and then him, until his body was limber once more, and his skin was no longer discolored and unnaturally dark. Finally, Kaoru remembered her dream by a riverside, and the words that would set Kenshin free from the Snow Queen's grasps. Together, they wrote eternity with the heat from their fingers, etching it onto the ice that could reflect no understanding but that of despair, marring the broken surface as no cool blade could. The invisible chains that had wrapped itself around Kenshin and Kaoru both, disappeared then, and the mirror that he was supposed to create out of loss and hopelessness reflected the truth of a person's heart instead.

They held hands and left the hall of the Snow Queen and wherever they went, the snow would melt as grass grew beneath their feet – in the very footprints they left behind. The sun still hid from this side of the world, but neither felt a need for it to rise to alleviate the dark feelings that once followed them in their wake. For them, the Snow Queen's clutch upon them was gone, and the rivers of light overhead was enough to guide them through the dark.

They stopped at the red-berry bush. There, the wolf that carried Kaoru stood with his mate, ready to take the two of them back to Tae's snow field. When asked, the wolf only rumbled gruffly as his mate laughingly explained that he believed that Kaoru would return. Touched by such a revelation, Kaoru ruffled the fur of the wolf, despite his growls of warning, once he could not escape her attention.

Tae waited for their arrival as well and equipped them with new clothes. She warmed them both to their toes with hot food and a comforting bed before seeing them off. When morning came they began their journey back to the Oniwaban Forest on the wolves' backs. While they rode through the darkness, Kaoru told Kenshin about the garden on her roof, and her and his father that would surely have thought them both gone forever, now. Kaoru worried but Kenshin only smiled to her reassuringly. "Don't worry, Kaoru," his gentle voice soothing her. "They may be unhappy with us now, but I know they will be glad to see us. I know, after everything, I will be most glad to see both of them again."

They bid the wolves farewell at the edge of the forest once they arrived. It was a tearful goodbye for Kaoru, and the reluctant wolf stood stiffly still in her embrace, despite his protests. The two of them didn't have to travel far after that parting to be greeted by a smiling Misao, who stopped by them in the white car that Megumi and Sanosuke had bestowed upon Kaoru.

Misao had, apparently, found her Aoshi. The man turned out to be an intensely reserved man - the very opposite of everything that made Misao who she was - who sat by Misao in the passenger side of the little car Megumi and Sanosuke had bestowed upon Kaoru. The little ninja girl had returned to let her Grandfather know that she was alright after she had found the man she was looking for.

"Ah, so you're Kaoru's Kenshin!" Misao scrutinized the affable, older boy with a critical eye. "I should like to get to know you," Misao finally declared after a long, uncomfortable silence. "I would wish to know the man who earned such devotion to force dear Kaoru to go from one side of the world to the other to find you again. I shall judge to see if you deserve everything she has done, just for you. If not, you'll have the Oniwaban to answer to."

Kaoru rolled her eyes, a blush coloring her cheeks at this and pulled at her friend's hair a bit too roughly for play. "Same for you, Misao. I'd like to get to know your Lord Aoshi to see if he deserved such a title, or if it's just you." At this Misao reflected Kaoru's earlier blush as Aoshi shot their driver an amused glance that spoke in place of his silence.

"Get in," Misao forged on with a pretended air of flippancy. "I'll give you a ride back home after visiting Grandpa!"

Kaoru and Kenshin looked at each other before thanking Misao and accepting the younger woman's offer. "By the way, Miss Misao," Kenshin asked tentatively. "Aren't you a bit too young to drive a car?" he observed as Kaoru and him piled into the back seats.

Misao turned back with a grin and a thumb up. "Don't worry guys! Aoshi's ten times worse behind the wheel!" It was the only warning they got before Misao sped like a demon from hell, back into the woods that Kaoru had just recently left on her own. Looking back, Kaoru cast one last glance to the places she had been and smiled as she silently bid her journey of finding Kenshin, goodbye. She turned forward once more and leaned her head against Kenshin's shoulder. Everything was alright now, this she knew as she closed her eyes.

Kenshin leaned his head against hers too. The two of them, adults in still growing bodies, were reunited finally. "I'm home," he whispered to her softly as the car rumbled down the road towards new adventures and new destinations.

"Welcome home, Kenshin." she mumbled in reply, face aglow with joy as she drifted to sleep in his arms. Their hands and fingers were intertwined despite their exhaustion.

Outside the car, the sun blazed overhead through the bared branches of the trees as winter began to melt and spring began to bloom.

_"...In our rose garden, I shall always believe in us._

_No matter the places you've gone and the person  
you've become—_

_This physical space that separates our bodies  
will never separate our hearts..."_

_**.Happily Ever After.**_

_**

* * *

**_

**Author's End Notes**

Not much to say this time. Only...

**_I'M DONE!_**

This story took longer than I thought. Started in the summer! That's like... four/five months! "Things That Change" only took like 2-3 weeks! But after many road-blocks, writers-blocks, boredom-blocks, lack-of-idea-blocks... well, it's complete. Hope you liked it :)

That was a long journey for Kaoru and Kenshin, ne?

Based heavily on The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, I hoped you had fun reading it! (**Note:** When Kenshin and Kaoru stopped by Tae's, Kaoru's actual time spent at the Snow Queen's palace, and when they traveled on the wolf's back - returning into the land of humans once more - the time was left deliberately vague as to how long they stayed "on the road". Hence, when Kaoru first arrived at Tae's, winter was beginning, and when they reached the Oniwaban forest again, winter just ended.)

Have a _"Happily Ever After"_! Hope not too many teeth rotted along the way to the end of this story - a bit more sugary than I'm used to writing. ;)

Until next time fellow readers and writers!

_Blue Jeans_


End file.
